YU-GI-OH: Kingdom Of The Shadows
by doctorwhofan12345
Summary: From all over the world, Duelists are being invited to a mysterious island where a Duel Monsters tournament is taking place, but the stakes are far, far higher than most realise... The first sixteen chapters or so will be used to introduce the main characters and then there will be around three or four chapters leading into the main events.
1. Chapter 1

YU-GI-OH!

The Kingdom Of Shadows

Chapter One

**London, England. 12****th**** of July 20****th**** 2014**

It was raining heavily in the capital city of England, thankfully the memorial duel stadium had a closable roof.

Inside the stadium, surrounded by a entire crowd were two duellists, one of them was a blond boy, around sixteen with glasses and wearing a black jacket and blue jeans, strapped to his left arm was a duel disk.

In front his were two of his monsters, Amazoness Fighter and Amazoness Sage, he also had two face down cards. He had 1200 lifepoints remaining.

His opponent was a young girl probably no older than him, she had pink hair and was dressed in attire that suggested she was a punk, like her rival she had a duel disk strapped tightly to her arm. she had only one monster but it was a formidable one, A Red Eyes Black Dragon, A rare monster made even more famous for being used by the legendary duellist Joey Wheeler. She had 3000 lifepoints left

The girl had three facedown cards and had equipped her Red Eyes with Black pendant raising it's attack power 2900 and it was still her turn.

The girl laughed. "Sorry Tyler but this is the end for you, Red Eyes attack his Amazoness Sage with Infernal Fire Blast!" The Black Dragon breathed it's intense fire towards the Amazon and it consumed her.

When the smoke cleared the Amazon was gone, and Tyler's life points fell to 450. He slowly started to smirk.

"What!?" Shouted the Girl in disbelief. "But my Red Eyes had 2900 attack points! You should have lost 1500, this duel should be over!"

"Well I'm sorry to disappoint you Kathy, but before your attack hit I activated one of my face down cards. Gift of the Amazoness Tiger! When your attack hit I only took half the damage I should have, and that's not all I also activate my second trap, Pride of Tribe. This allows me to special summon any Amazoness monster from my deck so long as she is four stars or less." Explained Tyler as his second facedown card lifted.

"And so, I will summon my Amazoness Blowpiper to the field!" In a flash of golden light the amazon appeared armed with her trusty blowgun. (800/1500)

Kathy frowned and looked at the two cards, that made up her hand. "I'll end my turn now, but it doesn't matter even if you use blowpiper's effect my dragon will still be stronger than anything you can summon!"

"We will see, won't we?" Said Tyler as he drew a card, he laughed. "I'm sorry Kathy, it was a good game but it's over."

"What do you mean?!" Asked Kathy.

"I just drew the card that will seal your fate!" Shouted Tyler. "I activate monster reborn to bring my Amazoness Queen back from the graveyard in attack mode!"

The holy symbol of Monster Reborn hung over the field and shined sliver and below the symbol in a flash of light the queen of the Amazons appeared in a flash of light. (2400/1800)

"And that's not all!" Tyler continued. "I now sacrifice my Amazoness Blowpiper to summon to the field the Amaoness Princess!"

The blowpiper faded away and in her place appeared a beautiful woman with long golden hair tied in a braid that went right down to her back and dark skin and she was armed with a curved sword(1700/1000). "And now." Tyler continued. "I'll activate a spell card that can only be used when Amazoness Princess and Amazoness Queen are on the field together, Royal Reunion!"

Tyler slid the card into his dick and large holographic version of it appeared on the field. "When this card is activated I can bring forth the true ruler of the Amazons. I summon Hippolyta, Empress of the Amazons!"

The monster that appeared stunned everyone into silence with her beauty, if Amazoness Princess was beautiful then Hippolyta was a whole other level, with long dark hair that went down to the small of her back, dark brown eyes and full lips she was a true beauty. She had firm muscles and in her hands were two great swords. (3300/2800)

Kathy gulped before shaking her head. "Fine, attack me if you want."

Tyler chuckled. "I wasn't born yesterday Kathy, and while Hippolyta had some great effects being immune to traps is not one of the them, thankfully I have a way to get around that." Tyler reached for another card slid it in to his disk.

"I activate Heavy Storm." A furious wind storm began to blow and Kathy's facedown cards began to buckle.

"Nice try!" Said Kathy with a victorious grin. She hit a button on her disk and one of her facedown's lifted. "Go Magic Jammer, quell his storm!" She shouted as she discard a card from her hand to fulfil the trap's cost.

The storm died down and Tyler stared evenly at his opponent before a smile broke out on his face. "Thank you."

"What!?" Shouted Kathy in confusion. "Why are you thanking me? I just ruined your strategy!"

"No." Tyler began as he reached for his last card. "You see, I had a feeling that one of those cards was Magic Jammer, so I used heavy storm as a decoy because I didn't want you to stop this!" Tyler slid his card slowly into his disk, savouring the moment.

"I activate, Royal Trinity Attack!" The three Amazons on the field crossed their blades and raised them high. "This card sort of works like Des Croaking, only instead of needing three different monsters on the field I need three unique monsters on the field, but the effect is the same I can destroy all cards on your side of the field!"

Kathy gasped in disbelief as her Dragon and her facedown cards all shattered into pixels. Her last card slipped out of her numb fingers.

"And now, Hippolyta, attack directly with fury of the amazons!" Hippolyta ran forward across the field and swung both her great blades down on to Kathy who let out a loud scream of defeat.

Tyler smiled as his duel disk shut down and the announcer crowned him the winner of the tournament. It had been difficult and their had been a few close calls but he had done it.

**XXXxxxx**

"Mom? Dad? I'm home!" Tyler shouted as he walked into his dark apartment, his trophy and his check for one thousand pounds in his hands. "And you guys aren't, what a shock!" Tyler sighed and put his trophy down on the side.

Tyler's parents were both famous researchers for a medical company in London, they were now, ironically in the Amazon Rainforest trying to develop new drugs from certain insects and plants. Deep down Tyler know his parents wouldn't be home today, but he could always hope right?

Tyler sighed and decided to try and get his thoughts away from such a depressing place and pulled out his cellphone. He had a thousand pounds and he was all alone with no parents in the house, that only meant one thing.

Pizza!

End of Chapter One

* * *

**Amazoness Princess:**

**Monster:**

**Type: Warrior**

**Level: Six**

**Attribute: Earth**

**Attack: 1700**

**Defence: 1000**

**Effect: This monster gain 300 ATK points for each Amazoness card on the field.**

* * *

**Hippolyta, Empress of the Amazons:**

**Monster:**

**Type: Warrior**

**Level: Nine**

**Attribute: Earth**

**Attack: 3300**

**Defence: 2800**

**Effects: This monster can not be normal summoned or set, it can not be special summoned except by the effect of Royal Reunion. This card is considered an "Amazoness". At any point you can choose to add a copy of Amazoness Homeland from your deck to your hand. Once per turn you can sacrifice an Amazoness and increase this card's attack by half of the sacrificed monster's ATK. This monster can attack once for every "Amazoness" Monster on your side of the field.**

* * *

**Royal Reunion:**

**Spell Card.**

**Type: Normal.**

**Image: Amazoness Princess and Amazoness Queen kneeling in front of a throne, only the figure on the throne's legs are visible.**

**Effect: This card can only be played when Amazoness Princess and Amazoness Queen are on the field, special summon one Hippolyta, Empress of the Amazons from your hand or deck.**

* * *

**Royal Trinity Attack: **

**Spell Card.**

**Type: Normal**

**Image: Amazoness Princess, Amazoness Queen and Hippolyta rasing their blades to the sky, crossing them.**

** Effect: This card can only be played when Amazoness Princess, Amazoness Queen and ****Hippolyta, Empress of the Amazons** **are on the field. Destroy all cards on your opponents side of the field**

* * *

**Gift of the Amazoness Tiger:**

**Trap Card:**

**Type: Normal**

**Image: The Amazoness Tiger standing protectively in front of a heavily wounded Amazoness Paladin while glowing with a soft light.**

**Effect: When one of your Amazoness monsters is destroyed by battle, only take half the damage that you would have normally.**

* * *

**Pride of Tribe:**

**Trap Card:**

**Type: Normal**

**Image: Amazoness Sword Woman kneeling at the top of a hill and holding her sword up high with a full moon in the background.**

**Effect: When one of your Amazoness monsters is destroyed by battle you can special summon one Amazoness monster from your deck or hand in attack mode.**

**(This card was used by Tania in her duel against Bastion, all credit goes to the writer of the episode.)**


	2. Chapter 2

YU-GI-OH

The Kingdom Of Shadows

Chapter Two

**Las Vegas, Nevada. 15****th**** of July, 2014**

The sun was shining bright on the Las Vegas strip. It was the perfet day to go and shop or swim or do any other kind of recreational activity.

Even duel.

Two people were facing one another down in one of Vegas's many malls, and a duel was underway between them.

One of them was a blond woman in her late fifties, she was wearing a cowboy hat and thick shades as well as a brown leather jacker and a pair of blue jeans held up with a belt with a sliver beltbuclke. The woman had a duel disk strapped to her arm.

Her opponent was a boy, probably just turned seventeen or was just about to turn eighteen, he was dressed in a white shirt and brown shorts with sandals, like the woman he had a duel disk strapped to his arm.

The woman's side of the field was empty and she had no cards in her hand, she had only two hundred lifepoints left.

Her opponent, by contrast had two monsters on the field and one card facedown, he also had one thousand lifepoints left. And the two monsters he had were most duellist's worst nightmares. Jinzo equipped with Amplifier and Horus the black flame dragon LV 8!

The boy laughed. "If I were you Grandma, I'd give up. I've locked down your spell and your trap cards and I've got two of the most powerful monsters in the whole game on the field and your defensless AND you've only got two hundred lifepoints left, when it's my turn again this duel's over!"

"Don't call me Grandma, sugar, and this duel isn't over while I still have lifepoints!" Said the older woman.

"_That's all very well to say Emily but unless your next card is a miracle drew then this duel really is over!" _Thought the older woman as she looked down at her deck.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself Emily slowly lowered her hand down towards her deck and drew a card. She looked at the card for a while trying to figure out what she should do.

The boy laughed. "If your trying to figure out wherever or not you should surrender let me give you some advice, do it. You really don't want me to attack you directly with Horus."

"I'm not trying to deiced whevere or not I should surronder Jared!" Shouted Emily. She took the card and placed it in on her disk. "I summon, Lucky White Rabbit, in attack mode!"

In front of Emily appreaed a large, white rabbit with glowing green eyes and what looked like tribal tattoos on it's fur. (550/500)

Jared laughed out loud. "Do you expect me to be scared of that thing!? My weakest monster could wipe the floor with it!"

"I don't expect you to be scared of it, I expect you to be scared of what it can do!" Exclamimed Emily as she held out her hand. "I sacrifice my Lucky White Rabbit to summon from my deck, Gamble Angel Bunny in attack mode!"

In a golden flash, a young woman appeared dressed in fake bunny ears and a fake bunny tail, she winked at Jared. (1200/1200)

"And before you make any crude jokes I activate my monster's effect! I flip a coin and if I call it right then you lose one thousand life points but if I call it wrong then I take one thousand lifepoints in damage!" Explained Emily as a large holographic coin appeared in front of whice then was thrown into the air.

"This is crazy! You are going let this duel ride on a coin toss!?" Shoured Jared in disbelief..

"Damn right I am and I call heads!" The coin fell back down to the ground and both duelists looked at it.

It was heads!

Jared screamed as Gamble Angel Bunny giggled and threw a hand of razor sharp cards at Jared who's life points tumbled down to zero.

Emily smiled as both duel disks deactivated and all the holograms shut down. She walked over to Jared. "Now then young man, I do belive you have something to say to me?"

Jared didn't look up at her and simply muttered. "I'm sorry I said you were too old to play duel monsters."

"I should think so!" And with that Emily turned around and walked off.

* * *

Emily sighed heavily as she walked into her apartment. She took her deck out her duel disks and put it in the draw where she put her most prized possessions.

When she closed the draw she picked up a sliver photo frame that stood atop the sideboard. It was a picture of a much younger Emily and a little boy with brown hair, both of them smiling happily.

Emily pressed a kiss the picture before putting it back where it was and heading towards the bathroom.

She really needed a shower.

End of Chapter Two.

* * *

**Lucky White Rabbit:**

**Monster:**

**Type: Beast**

**Level 3:**

**ATK: 550**

**DEF: 500**

**Effect: Sacrifice this face up monster to special summon one Gamble Angel Bunny from your deck, hand or graveyard.**


	3. Chapter 3

YU-GI-OH

The Kingdom Of Shadows

Chapter 3

**Rome, Italy. 15****th**** of July, 2014.**

Rome was a beautiful city, anyone with eyes could see that. Some people would say Paris was the city of love but anyone who Audery Hepburn and Gergory Peck in Roman Holiday knew that their was more than enough romance in the city.

But romance was only scratching the surface of the great city, Rome had history, art and culture. It had famous buildings such as the Sistine Chapel, Saint Peter's Basilica, the Arch of Constantine and of course, perhaps the most famous building in all of Rome, if not the entire world. The Coliseum.

Who hadn't heard of the coliseum, who hadn't heard stories of gladiators and slaves fighting for the amusement of cruel emperors with the loser to be fed to lions?

Today the coliseum still stood but it was a ruin, a well preserved ruin but a ruin none the less, a few small spectacles could still be held with in the fragile structure but no large scale events could be held in the large space.

But in a way these ancient competitions were continued today, in spirit at the very least in a variety of competitions and activities such as the Olympics and indeed most sporting activities.

One of these ways, was duel monsters! 

In a large open roofed stadium filled with spectators two duellists were duelling one another to see who would be declared the champion of Europe!

One the left side of the field was a man with brown skin and dark brown hair, he was dressed in a red jacket, grey slacks and a small necklace around his neck. He had a duel disk strapped to his arm.

Across from him was a woman with long blond hair and violet eyes, she was dressed in a purple jacket, a white shirt and a short purple mini skirt and knee high purple boots. She had a duel disk strapped to her arm.

In front of the man were three monsters, Ojama Yellow, Ojama Black and Ojama Green. He had two cards in his hand and no face down cards. He had 3000 lifepoints remaining.

The woman had no monsters on her side of the field, no cards in her hand and only one face down card. She had only 1200 life points remaining, suffice it to say things didn't look good for her.

The man laughed. "Sorry Mai, but it doesn't look good for you, I guess you'll always be known as the best dualist who never made it."

Mai frowned darkly, her years of soul searching had helped her to overcome most of her issues that had led her to Valon and Dartz and the Orichalcos but it was still a tender nerve.

"Bet you think you're clever don't you Aaron? Well enjoy it for now because I'm going to make you eat those words because it's my move!" Mai exclaimed as she drew her card and looked down at it.

"I play my pot of greed spell card! I'd explain what it does but honestly, is there anyone here who doesn't know what it does already?" Mai asked as she drew two new cards.

Mai's eyes widen as she saw what one of the two cards was, Harpie Lady Phoenix Formation! A card she had gotten when she had joined Dartz, the last time she had used this card was with her duel with Joey…

She sometimes wondered why she hadn't thrown this card and Sparrow Formation away or even put them up for auction they were very rare cards, she hadn't even heard of them before she met Valon, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, for better or worse these cards were a part of her life and a large part even if it was the worst she needed these reminders so she would never fall that far again.

Even so, she couldn't bring herself to actually use them and it wouldn't help right now so she pressed one of the button's on her disk. "I activate my facedown trap card, Hysteric Party!"

The trap card lifted and Mai discarded her Phoenix Formation. "I discard one card and now I can bring back as many monsters with Harpie Lady in their name as I can! So I bring back my two Cyber Harpies, my Harpie Lady One and my Harpie Queen!"

In a flash of light Mai's side of the field was now almost completely full, three of the monsters that had appeared looked almost exactly the same, with long red hair and the same facial features, the only difference being two of them wore armour and the other wore a skin-tight leotard.

The other monster looked slightly different, with her green hair worn up and her leotard a regal purple. All the monsters had one thing in common however, they didn't have hands or feet, they had claws and long wings.

"Now my Harpie Lady One's effect increases all my wind monsters attack points by three hundred points!" Mai explained as Harpie Lady One attack power raised to 1600 while both of her Cyber Harpies attack power was raised to 2100 and her Harpie Queen's attack power was raised to 2200.

"And now I activate my field spell card, Harpie's Hunting Ground!" Mai exclaimed as she placed her field spell card in to her field spell tray and then, once it closed the entire stadium was transformed into a rocky platform.

All of the Harpie's attack power was raised by two hundred extra points. Mai smirked. "You know Aaron, this might not be the best place for your Ojamas to hang out so. Cyber Harpies, Harpie Lady One take out those Ojamas!"

The Cyber Harpies and their identical cousin took to the sky and then dive-bombed towards to Ojamas, the three strange huddled together and screamed in horror but it didn't do any good and they were destroyed by three sharp swipes of the Harpie's claws.

Aaron scowled and then gulped as the Harpie Queen gave him an evil smirk.

"Now, my Harpie Queen attack Aaron directly!" the Harpie Queen's smirk grew and she then flew towards Aaron and raked her claws down Aaron's face taking his lifepoints down to eight hundred.

Aaron fell to the floor and checked his face, he breathed a sigh of relief, these holograms were so realistic and these duel disks simulated pain just as realistically.

Aaron got up and shot Mai a glare. "Did she have to go for the face, it's my pride and joy!"

Mai rolled her eyes and sighed. "Yes I'm sure it is, now I can not make any more moves so I'll end my turn."

"Well then it's my turn!" Exclaimed Aaron as he drew a card and looked at it before adding it to his hand. "I activate my Dark Factory of Mass Production!"

"And now I will add my Ojama Yellow and Ojama Black back to my hand!" Aaron took the two cards from his graveyard and added them to his hand. "I will now activate my Polymerization to fuse the my Ojama Yellow, Black and Green to summon my Ojama King!"

A giant monster appeared on Aaron's side of the field. It was 30 feet tall and a pale, almost milky white, it was heavy set and round with two large eye storks like a slug or a snails. it was also wearing a pair of red underwear.

The creature guffawed as it looked down at Mai and her monsters before crossing it's arms.

Aaron smirked at Mai's shocked expression. "My Ojama King has 3000 thousand defence points, none of your monsters can break through it, all I need to do is wait until I draw the right cards and this duel is over Mai!"

Mai took a deep breath. "Okay, here we go." She muttered under her breath before drawing her card. She smiled at what she draw before placing her card on the disk.

"I summon my Harpie's Pet Baby Dragon!" In a burst of light an tiny red dragon appeared in front of Mai, the Harpies themselves seemed to be overjoyed the appearance of the little dragon who let out a tine chirp.

Aaron stared at the dragon before bursting out in laughter, tears welled up in the dragon's eyes as the Harpies and Mai glared at Aaron.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Shouted Aaron as he tried to stop laughing. "You expect me to be scared of that thing!? It hasn't got any more attack points than a baby dragon!"

"He might seem weak at first glance Aaron but my Harpie's Pet Baby Dragon has multiple effects but he only had access to them depending on how many Harpie Ladies are on the field since I have more than there he gets all of them which means that once per turn I can destroy one card!" Mai exclaimed as she pointed at Ojama King.

"What!?" Shouted Aaron as both he and his monster drew back in fear, a small fireball appeared in the dragon's who then shot it towards the Ojama King who screamed before exploding.

Aaron looked at where his monster had been standing in disbelief before looking back up and seeing the baby dragon creating another fireball in his mouth. "What's it doing now!?" He shouted in disbelief.

"His effect destroyed your dragon, I havent used it's attack yet and you have nothing to protect yourself with, so Harpie's Pet Baby Dragon attack directly with fearsome fire ball!" The fire ball shot out of the dragon's mouth and it hit Aaron.

Aaron screamed in frustration at losing before slumping to the ground on his knees.

A man dressed in a white shirt with black stripes held up his hand. "And the winner is: Mai Valentine!"

The stadium practically shook with applause, Mai smiled softly and waved her hand slightly, she used to be use to applause like this but ever since the Orichalcos she seemed to be a lot more…humble for a lack of a better word.

Once the applause had died down and she was handed the trophy and made a little speech she left the stadium and got into a taxi that was waiting outside. The taxi took her to her hotel, a classy place with an elegant atmosphere.

Once she had signed in at the front desk and got in to her room she put the trophy away and laid down on her bed. After her head had hit the pillows she turned to look at the photo that stood on her bedside table.

It was a picture taken just after the Battle City finals, it was herself Yugi, Joey and all their friends, Mai sometimes entertained the idea of getting back in touch with them but…she just couldn't do it, what if they couldn't forgive her?

She knew it was cowardly but she just couldn't risk it, she had been rejected so many times in her life she didn't think she could take it if they, if Joey rejected her.

And so Mai wrapped her arms around herself and fell asleep staring at the picture.

End of Chapter Three.


	4. Chapter 4

YU-GI-OH

The Kingdom Of Shadows

Chapter Four

**Domino City, Japan: 16th of July, 2015.**

Domino City had seen a great deal of duel monsters tournaments in it's recent history, the most famous of course being the legendary Battle City where the best of the best came together to compete for the title of king of Battle City and rare cards that they anted up.

It was also where the three legendary Egyptian god cards, Obilisk the Tormentor, Slifer the Sky Dragon and the Winged Dragon of Ra made their first, or at least their most well documented first, appearance.

The tournament that was taking place in the city at the moment in the large stadium that was opened after Battle City in the hope that there would be more large tournaments in the city's future was not quite up to the scale of Battle City but for the people competing in it, it was just as big a deal.

The tournament had finally reached the finals and it had been hard fight for both duelists to make it this far but right now there were both fighting the hardest to come out the victor.

One of the duelists was a high school girl with dark brown hair and green eyes wearing a white shirt and a long skirt with a red hairband in her hair, she had a duel disk strapped to her arm.

In front of her was a monster that could only be described as a vampire, it had green hair in an effeminate hair cut and it wore fancy clothes with a cape. (2000/1500) She also had two face down cards and a female vampire with green hair that she wore up and a purple dress crouching in defence. (1550/1550). She also had 4000 thousand life points left.

The other duellist was also a girl but she seemed to be closer to collage age than the other girl, maybe around twenty-two at the very most, she had bright auburn hair and warm blue eyes. She work a pair of tight blue jeans and a jacket she wore over a yellow shirt which had the word flutter written on it.

In front of her were two monsters, one a woman in a skirted business suit with large angel wings sprouting out of her back and wearing glasses and holding what looked like a law book in her hands. (1800/500)

The other was a woman dressed in a robe that was kneeling next to a large harp. (800/2000)

The duelist also had a card facedown and she had 2000 life points remaining.

It was the dark haired girl's turn and she drew a card, she smiled and added it to her hand before speaking. "You won't be able to last much longer Serenity, I can't get past your Sprit of the Harp this turn but that won't be true for much longer. Vampire Lord! Attack Hysteric Fairy with children of the night!"

The male vampire grinned and lifted his cape and a swarm of bats flew out, the bats began to overwhelm the fairy and it shattered into pixels.

Serenity winced as her life points slipped down to 1800.

"That small life point loss is the lest of your problems because now I can use Vampire Lord's effect, I name a type of card and you have to pick a card in your deck and send it to the graveyard and I choose spell card!" The girl said with a cocky grin.

Serenity frowned and took her deck out the slot on her disk and looked through it, trying to find a card that losing wouldn't do too much damage to her.

_"I guess I don't really need my second copy of Sanctuary in the Sky." _Serenity thought as she took the field spell and placed it in her graveyard slot, she then shuffled her deck and placed it back in it's slot.

"That's my turn but I just think you should know that I don't think you will see your next one Wheeler, I guess duelling talent doesn't run in the family." The girl said with a grin.

"How would you like it if I came down there and you said that to me!?" A loud male voice yelled from the stands, both duelists turned their heads to look at where that had come from.

Joey Wheeler had leapt from his seat and it was taking all of Tristan Taylor's and Duke Devlin's strength to keep him from bursting out of the stands and running down to the field to intervene.

"Joey, man calm down before you get yourself kicked out of here and you can't watch your sister make the comeback we all knows coming." Tristan said, trying to calm him down.

"Yeah and more importantly calm down before you get Serenity disqualified." Duke pointed out.

Joey sighed and calmed down before sitting back down in his seat. He raised his hands and shouted down to his little sister. "Don't give up Serenity! I know that you can beat her!"

_"Thanks big brother, you're always there when I need you."_ Serenity thought with a smile before she turned back to her face her foe with a look of determination on her face. "I'm not the one going down Yumi! You are! Now, it's my move."

Serenity drew a card and nodded. "First, I activate my facedown trap card. Call of the Haunted! This let's my revive one monster from the graveyard and I think I'll bring back my Hysteric Fairy!"

The facedown card lifted and glowed with energy before the fairy returned to the field in a golden flash, only the creature did not look at all Hysteric, she looked down right pissed.

"But she won't be staying long, because I'm going to sacrifice her along with Spirt of the Harp to summon one of my two favourite monsters." Both of Serenity's monsters disappeared in two separate flashes of light and Call of the Haunted shattered. "So now come forth, Guardian Angel Joan!"

A colossal form appeared on the field, at first glance it didn't appear all that intimidating it was a woman dressed in a white dress with gold embroidery and she had a smile on her face that could on be described as pleasant to look at but she also had colossal wings and she radiated nothing but pure power. (2800/2000)

"Now, I could obviously wipe out both your monsters with my Guardian Angel but I can see those two face downs quite clearly so I'm going to activate the magic of Heavy Storm to destroy all spell and trap cards on the field!" Serenity shouted as she slid the card into her disk and a heavy windstorm started up.

Yumi gasped in disbelief as two facedown's buckled under the wind and then shattered, she looked fearfully at the immensely powerful fairy.

"Now I activate Cestus of Dagla!" Serenity shouted and two oddly shaped blades appeared in her hands. (2800)-(3300)

"This just doesn't just give Joan a power boost but it also means that if she inflicts battle damage then the amount you lose gets added to my life points" Serenity explained. "Now, attack Vampire Lord, Joan! Strike of the Divine!"

Joan flew forward and slashed the undead creature and it shattered into pixels.

Yumi groaned as her life points fell to 2700.

"Now Joan's effect activates and I gain the same number of life points as the attack points of the monster she just destroyed and that's 2000 and don't forget Cestus of Dagla's second effect giving me an extra 1300, giving me a total of 3300 life points!" Serenity said as Joan glowed and her life points raised 5100. "And that'll due for now."

"Way to go sis! You've got her on the run!" Joey exclaimed from the stands as he, Tristan and Duke cheered her on.

"I am not done yet! I activate Mystic Wok to sacrifice my Vampire Lady to gain 1550 life points!" Yumi shouted as her life points raised to 4250. "Next I activate Call of the Mummy to summon from my hand Despair from the Dark!"

A monster that could be described as an evil shadow with a malovently grin and a large pair of claws appeared on the field with an evil chuckle.

Serenity shuddered. "It's creepy but it still can't beat Joan!"

"No, but this can! I activate Dark Core!" Yumi slid the spell card into the slot and a dark vortex appeared floating over Joan's head, Serenity could only watch with a horrified look on her face as her monster was dragged into the vortex.

"Joan is removed from play and now you've got nothing to defend yourself with! Go Despair from the Dark, attack with Shadow Swipe!" The demonic shadow reached out and swiped Serenity savagely and she fell on her behind as her life points fell to 2300.

"Serenity!" Joey, Duke and Tristan shouted from the stands.

Sernity got to her feet and drew a card. "I...I'm still in it! I activate Card of Sanctity, this let's us both draw until we have a full hand of six cards." She said as she played the card and drew five cards.

"Works for me." Yumi muttered as she drew six cards.

"I activate Sanctuary in the Sky!" Serenity said as she placed the card in the field slot and their surroundings were transformed into a field of clouds with a magnificent palace in the background.

"Next, I summon the Warrior of Zera!" A man dressed in green armour and holding a strange sword appeared, standing on one the clouds. His stern face seemed to nearly crack from the relived smile on his face when he noticed that he was in the sanctuary.

"Now, I sacrifice him to special summon...Archlord Zerato in attack mode!" A colossal form, even more intimidating than Joan appeared in front of Serenity.

It was a figure with purple skin and large green wings, it wield a large sword and it's eyes glowed with a great power. (2800/2300)

Yumi chuckled nervously. "Okay, I admit you had me worried there for a moment and that is pretty impressive but if you attacked with it would just be a draw."

"Which is why I am not going to attack with it yet, I discard Happy Lover from my hand to activate his effect." The archlord raised his mighty blade and slammed it down, releasing a blast of energy which destroyed Despair from the Dark easily.

"Now, attack directly. Wrath of the Archlords!" The Archlord flew forward and slammed it's sword into Yumi who actually flew back a few steps as her life points fell to 1450.

"I've still got life points left!" Yumi shouted.

"Which is why I am activating the quick play spell! Blessed are the meek!" Serenity played the spell card and the Archlord disappeared in a flash of light.

"Now, Archlord had eight stars which means because of my spell I can summon four two star or below monsters from my graveyard, so come forth, Happy Lover! Keymace! Petite Angel and Freya, Spirit of Victory!"

Four monsters appeared, the first a tiny ball with no limbs but four wings and heart shaped marks on it's head (800/400), the second was a tiny pixie holding a large key that was bigger than it's self (400/300), the third was a monster that looked similar to Happy Lover but only had two wings and a small halo (600/900) And the final monster was a young woman who was dressed like a cheerleader, complete with poms poms. (100/100)

"Freya increase all my fairy monsters attack power by four hundred points but it doesn't really matter either way because you lose either way, get her guys!" The fairy's rushed forward and tackled Yumi to the floor, taking her life points down to zero.

"And the winner of the Domino City Local Tournament is: Serenity Wheeler!" The announcer shouted as the holograms shut off, Serenity walked over to where Yumi was sitting on the floor and offered her a hand, helping her to her feet.

"Good duel!" Serenity said with a warm smile.

"Whatever." Yumi muttered as she stormed off and Serenity blinked in surprise.

"Ah, don't be a sore loser!" Joey called after Yumi as she left the stadium and he rushed over to his sister. "Good work Sis! Your first official tournament victory, keep this up and I'll have to watch out for ya!"

"Joey!" Serenity said with a shake of her head and a sigh. "It's hardly a major tournament, I am not exactly on my way to the pro league."

"No, but it's a good first step." Said Duke as he and Tristan walked on the field, the small group of four then left the stadium when Serenity was handed her small trophy and her check.

"So, what do you wanna do with your winnings? Go for a bite?" Tristan asked and tried not to look at Joey who was shooting him a glare.

"No, I think I kind just want head home. I am beat." Serenity said with a yawn.

"Course Sis, let's get you home. I'll see you guys later." Joey said as he lead Serenity over to where a taxi was waiting and they got inside.

In less than an hour they arrived at Joey's apartment and Serenity headed straight for her room, she placed her trophy on her bedside table and flopped down on to her bed, not bothering to change her clothes or get under the covers.

She looked at the trophy and smiled before she closed her eyes.

_"A great first step." _That thought echoed in her head as she slowly feel to sleep.

End of Chapter Four.

**Blessed Are The Meek:**

**Spell Card**

**Type: Quick Play**

**Image: A shinning out line of a large monster with four smaller monsters flying out of it.**

**Effect: Sacrifice one of your monsters and for each multiple of two is it's star level you may summon a level two or below monster from your graveyard.**

* * *

**I should say now the Card of Sanctity will be using it's anime effect and some cards that are forbidden in the real word are only limited in this story for example: Monster Reborn, Pot of Greed and Premature Burial are limited while Dark Hole and Ragiki are forbidden.) **

**Also, while I have nothing against them, Synchro Summoning, Xyz and Pendulum monsters will not be used in this story.**

**Please review, favourite and follow and if you want to use any of the cards created for this story then just shoot me an PM.**

**Also, I should mention the time scale as no dates were ever given as to when any of the series take place. This story takes place after the original series has ended and I am assuming the series started ten years ago and took place over a course of two years. With that in mind, this story probably takes place around two years before GX begins.**


	5. Chapter 5

YU-GI-OH

The Kingdom Of Shadows

Chapter Five.

**New York, Manhattan, USA: 17th of July, 2015:**

New York. The Big Apple. The City that never sleeps, So good they named it twice.

Perhaps the most famous city in the entire world having been used as the setting of various books, TV shows, comics and movies either simply as a backdrop or using it's rich history as a key part of the story. The city was best known for it's famous monuments of course, the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty.

So, as Duel Monsters grew in popularity over the years, was it any wonder that it was one of the first cities in America to have it's own Duel Monsters stadium built with holographic technology nearly eleven years ago, at the time the best that Kaiba Corp could develop. The stadium it's self was impressive, a large domed building capable of holding up to a thousand people.

And right now, a Duel Monsters tournament was taking place within the stadium.

Now the holographic technology that was used was state of the art at the time it was installed but now it was fairly outdated compared to the Duel Disk technology available on the market today but so far the stadium had not yet been renovated and thus it still used the old holostadiums.

The tournament taking place inside the dome had been going on for three whole days and the winner would be declared the best duelist in all of New York, all of the duelist's had been skilled and fought well but in the end only two duelists could face one another for the chance to win the title.

The duel terminal they were standing at was similar in design to the ones used in the Duelist Kingdom tournament with two podiums, one coloured red and the other coloured blue.

Standing in the red podium was a man dressed in a sharp business suit and he had an expensive haircut, he had a confident, and a little smug, smirk on his face, like everything was going according to his plan. he had no cards in his hand and 4600 life points remaining.

He only had one monster on his side of the field but it was an impressive one, a gargantuan being so tall that it's head nearly brushed against the roof of the stadium, it was made of metal and it glowed with a light so bright that it almost hurt too look at it. It also had what looked like two large steel wings on it's back. (2300/3000)

He chucked and shook his head while his eyes were closed. "Face it punk, you've lost. My Creator is going to cream your little runt and then this duel will be over. Surrender now and you can spare yourself the shame of watching me destroy your monster."

His opponent, a brown haired youth with clear blue eyes dressed in a dark jacket, a plain white t-shirt and blue jeans that had a great deal of holes in them glared at him. "You wish ya snob!" He shouted, his thick Brooklyn accent smothering the words. "Now will you move because I am falling asleep over here!"

"The name is Richard and clearly you were never taught to respect you're betters!" The man shouted annoyed. "But maybe me frying your monster will help with that! Creator! Fry his monster with divine wrath!"

The titan raised it's hands to the roof and the glow that surrounded them grew brighter and brighter, several of the spectators in the stands actually had to avert their eyes that it got so bright, it thrust it's hands out and a bolt of bright lightning flew towards the short monster on the other side of the field and a large explosion suddenly erupted on the field, obscuring the monster.

Richard laughed. "Sorry kid, looks like your luck finally run out." He shut his eyes and basked in his victory. "But don't feel too bad, there was no way you were ever going to be able to beat me."

"You may want to open your eyes and look at the field, more specifically the fact that my life points haven't dropped by a single point and my little buddy Chick is still on the field, unharmed." The youth said with a smile. "And it's all thanks to my Silver Dollar trap card! You attacked a monster with only one thousand attack points so my monster is safe and I didn't take any battle damage."

Richard grunted in annoyance. "You're just delaying the inevitable, next turn I can use The Creator's power to special summon a monster from the graveyard and then there's no way you'll be able to beat me!"

"We'll see about that!" The youth shouted as he drew his next card, he couldn't help the wide grin that spread on his face as he saw what it was.

_"Oh, lady luck loves Tommy Schofield!" _He thought as he threw the card down on the board. "I summon, Don Zaloog in attack mode!" In a flash a man wearing an eye patch, a black leather vest and red pants appeared on the field. He had a tattoo of a scorpion in black ink on his shoulder and he was armed with two pistols. (1400/1500)

"You have three copies of him!?" Richard groaned in disbelief before he shook his head wildly. "Whatever, I'll roast him just like I did the other two."

"Not yet!" Tommy shouted as he played a card down. "I activate the spell card, Mustering of the Dark Scorpions!" A holographic version of the card appeared on the field and glowed. "Now, if Don Zaloog is on the field I can summon any Dark Scorpion monster from my hand to the field. I have three, so come on out: Meanae the Thorn! Cliff the Trap Remover and Gorg the Strong!"

Three monsters appeared in three separate flashes of light, the first was a beautiful woman with long brown hair who was wielding a long whip (1000/1800). The second was a young man with short brown hair and spectacles wielding a short dagger (1200/1000) and the third was a muscular, bald man wielding a large maul (1800/1500). There were all dressed the same as Don Zaloog and they all had the same tattoo of the scorpion on their shoulders.

The five members of the gang looked at one another and nodded before turning to face their giant foe.

Richard laughed. "Great, you've got five weaklings instead of one. None of them get beat The Creator!"

"I'm not finished!" Tommy shouted as he held up the last card in his hand. "I'll set this trap card face down and that's my turn."

"You were actually dumb enough to tell me that was a trap!" Richard said a guffaw. "You're either as dumb as you look or you playing for one hell of a bluff." He drew a card from his deck. "And now I will-

"I activate my trap! Dark Scorpion Combination!" Tommy shouted as his trap card lifted. "Now all my Dark Scorpions can attack you directly, each attack only does 400 points damage but that's still 2000 all together. so get him boys...and...girl!"

The five Dark Scorpion's rushed forward, Meanae lashed out with her whip, Cliff slashed with his dagger, Chick hit him with his mallet, Gorg swung and his maul and Don shoot his pistols, Richard wincing with each attack his life points falling with each attack until they fell to 2600.

"And now there effects activate! And they all have two, Chick forces you to discard a card at random from your hand but you only have the one, Meanae allows me to add a Dark Scorpion a card from my deck to my hand." Tommy explained as he took a card from his deck and then shuffled it as Richard discarded his card with a sneer.

"Now Gorg's first effect lets me send one of your monsters from the field to the top of your deck!" Gorg pointed as The Creator vanished in a flash, Richard yelled and took the card and placed it on top of his deck. "And finally Cliff and Don allow me to send two cards each from the top of your deck to the graveyard."

Richard gasped and picked up four cards and roughly threw them on to the discard space. "You are going to pay for that you little thug! I still have 2600 life points left and you only have four hundred left, this duel will be over on my next turn!"

"You won't get a next turn!" Tommy exclaimed as he picked up his next card from his deck. "Did you think my playing Combination meant that couldn't attack normally on my turn? Well too bad, they can! Let's do it again guys!"

The five Dark Scorpions rushed forward and repeated their attacks and Richard screamed and held his head in his hands as his life points tumbled down to zero. "I can't-I can't have been beaten by a piece of street trash!"

"You just were!" Tommy exclaimed as he did a fist pump and almost everyone in the crowed roared and applauded in equal measure and Tommy decided to bask in the limelight for a while.

* * *

It was nearly an hour later when Tommy's taxi dropped him off in front of his apartment building in Brooklyn, it was a run down building but it wasn't too bad all things considered. The landlord was a nice guy who was always understanding if the rent was a week late and the heating always worked in the winter so being cold was never a huge problem.

He walked through the lobby and winked at the landlord's daughter, a cute brunette named Aaliyah who was manning the desk who rolled her eyes but had an amused smile on her face.

He took the elevator up to his floor and walked to his apartment, as soon as he unlocked the door and walked in he was suddenly assaulted by small ball of energy. "You're back! You're back!"

Tommy shook his head and laughed as he put his trophy and check down on the hall table and looked down at the little girl who had rushed him. "Yes, I'm back. did you miss me?"

The little girl, Lisa his baby sister, rocked back and forth on her feet as if she was seriously thinking about. "I guess I did but anyway, you actually won! Your the best duelist in all of New York! Did you win a lot of money!?"

"Not bucket loads but a little bit?" He said as he hung up his coat before walking in the living room and sitting down on the old worn out couch, maybe he could use the money to by a new one that didn't look like a wild animal had been chewing on it?

"Do you have enough money to buy me a new toy? Because there is the new Princess Mindy action figure coming out and there's an exclusive version that-wait here I'll go and get the magazine I saw it in, it's in my room." Lisa said before she ran out of the living room like a little girl possessed.

Tommy couldn't help but chuckle as he watched his little sister go, he probably would buy his little sister the doll but that would be it in terms of luxury that the five-thousand dollar check would go to. The rest would go into food, paying bills and a special account he had set up for all the money he could spare for Lisa's collage fund.

It was just him looking after Lisa, there parents had died in a car crash and they were living pay check to pay check for awhile but then he decided to use what little money he spent on himself to start getting into this duel monsters thing that his friends had been telling him about and in the first pack he pulled was the five original Dark Scorpion members, he took it as a sign and made a Dark Scorpion deck.

He honestly thought that he would only make a little cash, he never thought that he would earn the title of best duelist in New York!?

Lisa came back and jumped up to sit next to him and showed him the doll and she began to talk five miles a minute about it and why of course she simply had to get the exclusive version.

Tommy rested his head on the back of the couch and closed his eyes as he relaxed to the sound of his sister taking, they had their ups and their downs but it was times like this that proved to him that in the end...

Things would turn out okay.

End of Chapter Five

* * *

**Please review, favourite and follow if you are enjoying this because it would really help me out to know that someone is enjoying it somewhere in the world.**

* * *

**Silver Dollar:**

**Trap Card:**

**Type: Normal**

**Image: A silver dollar**

**Effect: If your opponent attacks one of your monsters with 1000 attack points or fewer then reduce the battle damage to zero and the monster that was targeted by the attack is not destroyed.**

**Note: This card was first used by Joey is his and Yugi's duel with the Big Five.**


	6. Chapter 6

YU-GI-OH

The Kingdom Of Shadows

Chapter Six.

**Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 19th of July, 2015:**

While not the capital of Brazil almost everyone would agree that Rio de Janeiro was by far the most famous city in Brazil due to it's famous statue of Christ the redeemer that dominated the skyline and when last year that the city hosted the world cup.

Duel monsters came quite late to the city and for that matter the country it's self, it was only after the Kaiba Corp Grand Prix that the game really began to make any sort of headway and even then they did not open their first duel monster's stadium for nearly five years after the fact.

Now however the game was almost as popular as soccer and nearly a half dozen stadiums were built in Rio and other major cities through out the country.

Currently a tournament was taking place to determine who would be named the national champion, the competition had been intense with over two hundred duelist's entering and giving there all, but the duelists had been narrowed down to sixty-four, then thirty-two, then sixteen, then eight, then four and now two men were duelling for the title and a check of twenty-thousand reals.

The first finalist was a tall man in his mid thirties, he was chubby and wearing a business suit, not the most common attire of a duelist but some would say that anyone could be a duelist. He had a duel disk strapped to his arm and a golden watch, he was also holding a hand of four cards. He had 3900 life points remaining.

In front of him were two monsters, one was a strange monster that looked like a cross between a man and a wolf, it also had four arms that ended in sharp claws and had glowing red eyes and was wearing what looked like a metal skirt. (2000/100) The other was a man shaped panther dressed in armour, holding a sharp sword and a shield in both arms. (2000/1600)

His opponent was a younger man, he looked like he was probably just entering his twenties and he was dressed is a white shirt over which he wore a black leather jacket but it did little to cover up his muscular physique. He also wore a pair of jeans that had a fair few holes and rips in them, he also wore a duel disk. He had a hand of two cards and 4550 life points left. Despite having more life points he was actually in the losing position and he was sweating heavily.

He had only one monster on the field and while it was a frightening one it wasn't any match for his opponents, it could only be described as a puppet with a malicious expression on it's face and it was holding a very sharp axe, it also had pointed teeth. (1600/1700) But despite how frightening it looked it still wasn't strong enough to with stand an attack from either of the other two monsters that his opponent controlled.

"Gene-Warped Warwolf! Attack Malice, Doll of Demise with Four Arm Shred!" The twisted wolf-man leaped forward and used it's four arms to literally tear the evil doll apart, the pieces fell to the floor and then shattered into pixels, his controller winced as his life points fell to 4150.

"And now, I will sacrifice Warwolf so my Panther Warrior can attack directly! Saber Slash!" Gene-Warped Warwolf disappeared in a flash and Panther Warrior leaped forward with a loud snarl before slashing the young man down the middle, bringing his life points down all the way to 2150.

The older man laughed as his monster returned to his side. "You didn't honestly think that you could beat me? Did you? How arrogant this is a man's game, it is not for little menino's."

_"Filho da Puta!" _The younger man thought angrily as he held his middle, he might not actually be wounded but the duel disks were very good at simulating pain. "If your done, I will take my turn."

The young man, whose name was Gabriel practically ripped a card from the top of his deck and he grinned at what it was. "I play Pot of Greed, I'll draw two cards!" He took two more cards and grinned even wider, a plan was starting to form, he picked up a card. "I remove from my graveyard and from play, Archfiend Solider, Bistro Butcher and Malice, doll of demise from play so I can summon from my hand! Dark Necrofear!"

Three cards slipped out of his graveyard slot and he placed in his jeans back pocket, he then placed the card that he held up on to the disk. An ominous form appeared on the field, it was a tall female monster with blue skin and pointed ears like an elf, she had wide yellow eyes that seemed to stare into your soul and all she wore was a breast plate, leather greaves and gauntlets.

By far the most disturbing feature about the creature however was what it was holding in it's hands, it was practically cradling a small one armed mannequin, like it was her child. (2200/2800)

"Mother of god." The man in the suit whispered and quickly made the sign of the cross over his chest as he stared at the creature in fear.

"I'm afraid that things are only going to get worse for you, I active Contract with the Dark Rueler!" He slid the spell card into his disk. "This card works by me selecting one fiend that I just summoned by any means and in exchange I can summon another but the deal is that the fiend must be at least two levels lower and what do you know? The Dark Ruler himself fits the deal, so let's give a big hello to Ha Des!"

He placed the card on the disk and a new form seemed to rise up form the floor, it wasn't quite as intimidating as Necrofear but that really wasn't saying much at all. It was a demon with green skin and red eyes, it was wearing a fancy robe with a cloak and large steel pauldrons, clutched in one of his claws was a wine glass that was filled with a strange green liquid. (2450/1600)

"Now, time to clean house! Dark Necrofear, destroy Panther Warrior with Doom Gaze!" Dark Necrofear at first didn't seem to do anything, she merely stared at Panther Warrior for a moment but then her eyes seemed to widen to an extent that seemed impossible, a dark blast of energy shot out of her eyes and destroyed Panther Warrior easily.

"And now Ha Des! Attack with Wrath of the Underworld!" Ha Des held out his empty hand and a blast of red light shot out of his open palm and struck the man in the suit who screamed in a combination of pain and rage.

"That's my turn, in case you aren't good at math my attacks have taken your life points down to 1250 and I've got two of the most powerful fiends on the game so I think this is almost over." Gabriel said with a cocky grin, he knew that he shouldn't be overconfident, after all a moment ago he was the one losing this duel but he couldn't help it!

This guy had really been getting on his nerves, he had made it clear that he didn't see Gabriel as any sort of serious competition and that he was just a little kid that got lucky, so being able to kick the arrogant bastard in his huge ass was really damn satisfying.

"I didn't come this far to lose to a damn kid! I won't let you be our national champion! I just won't! I draw!" The man ripped a card off of his deck and smiled at what it was, he could still pull this around!

"First of all I'll set one card face down and I'll summon this from my hand!" He flipped the card around and showed the monster to Gabriel.

"That monster has seven stars! You can't summon it without at least two sacrifices!" Gabriel shouted.

"I can with it's effect I can summon it without any monsters to sacrifice so long as I cut it's attack and defence points in half! So let's bring out, Fusilier Dragon, the Duel-Mode Machine Beast." The monster that appeared on the field was certainly impressive as first glance it looked like a mechanical dragon but instead of a body it had a tank as a body and two large guns mounted on it's side and on it's head. (2800/2000)-(1400/1000)

"Okay so it looks impressive but it's too weak to hurt my monsters now, I guess you are bad at math." Gabriel said with a smile and a chuckle.

"Oh, how could I have been so foolish!? I guess there is nothing I can but simply end my turn and wait for you to finish me off! Please, make it quick!" The man said overdramatically with wide gestures.

_"There's something wrong here. That facedown card...is it a trap? Is that monster a decoy?" _He thought as he drew his card and looked at it, it was a spell card but he couldn't use it without a specific field spell and he didn't have that in his hand. He couldn't risk Necrofear or Ha Des he looked over his hand to see if there was anything else he could do. "Alright I'll-

"I activate my facedown card! It's called Skill Drain! At the cost of one thousand life points all monsters on the field lose their effects!" The man shouted and the trap card lifted, Gabriel gasped loudly at the sight of the image of the card, it was Ha Des but he almost seemed to be melting with golden trails of smoke lifting from him.

He gasped again when noticed that the real Ha Des, well the hologram of Ha Des anway, and Dark Necrofear began to smoke and almost seemed to be in pain.

"And don't worry, my monsters are affected too. But in my case that almost always an advantage such as with Fusilier as now it attack and defence go back to their original scores." Fusilier roared as it's attack and defence shot back up. (2800/2000)

Gabriel looked at his hand there was nothing he could do with hand, he sighed before reaching to turn both of the cards on his disk. "I change Dark Necrofear and Ha Des to defence mode and that's all I can do."

The man smirked and drew his card but he didn't even bother to really look at it. "Now Fusilier, attack Dark Necrofear with Judgement Blasts!" The machine/dragon roared again and fired two laser beams from it's head mounted blasters which struck Dark Necrofear and destroyed with a large holographic explosion.

"That's all I can do for now so I'll leave you to sweat idiota menino." The man said with a loud laugh as Gabriel glared at him.

_"This is bad! I'm up against a monster that's almost more powerful than anything in my deck and all my monsters effects are down, I have a way that I can beat that thing but I need to get rid of Skill Drain first. I'll just have to hope for the best." _Gabriel thought as he closed his eyes and reached for his deck, he drew a card and held it for a moment before opening his eyes and looked at what he had drawn.

"I activate Mystical Space Typhoon to destroy your Skill Drain trap card." A large holographic version of the card appeared on the field and it shot out a typhoon that made the man's Skill Drain card shatter into fragments.

The man laughed, quietly at first before it grew into almost hysterical levels. "I am sorry, you clearly thought that if you got rid of Skill Drain then my monster's attack would go back to it's halved amount well I'm but it hasn't."

"I thought that might actually be the case but it doesn't matter because my monsters have gotten their effects back so now I summon from my hand, Winged Minion!" A little blue creature with a large pair of wings and limbs that ended in claws appeared on the field, it giggled manically.

"And now I'll shift my Dark Ruler back to attack mode." Ha Des stood up and started at the monster on the other side of him before grinned widely. "And now." Gabriel began. "I'll use the Winged Minion's effect, by sacrificing him I can increase one fiend monster's attack permanently by seven hundred points."

"No!" The man shouted but it was too late, the Winged Minion had disappeared and Ha Des was surrounded by a dark aura and his attack points raised to 3150.

"Now Ha Des! Take down Fusilier!" Ha Des laughed before threw a red energy wave from his hands. Fusilier screamed and was reduced to scrap metal.

The crowd in the stadium went wild! Apparently Gabriel's opponent hadn't been well liked by them either as no one was silent, Gabriel couldn't help but take a bow and grin.

As the host came down to present him with his trophy and check he noticed that the man was gone but he didn't care at the moment anyway, he had a speech to give!

* * *

"Stupid game...Too confusing anyway...Pegasus is a loon..." Gabriel's opponent muttered to himself as he walked away from the stadium, he wanted to get away as soon as possible.

Him name was Eduardo Tavares and he had been instrumental in bringing Duel Monsters to Brazil, he was the president of the country's branch of Industrial Illusions but no one in there seemed to care, they wouldn't even be playing the damn game if not for him! It was his idea to hold the damn tournament in the first place.

And now he was probably out of a job, by the time the next board of director's meeting came around or at the very least he would be in for some stiff punishment. Pegasus wasn't very lenient when it came to an executive of the company losing a duel, in his view if you couldn't play the game then you shouldn't be in a position of authority over it.

He walked down the steps in front of the stadium and nearly had a heart attack when a white stretch limo drove in front of him, he was about to start yelling at but he stopped when the door opened and a stunning blond woman stepped with a smile on her red lips.

"Mister Tavares? Might I have a moment of your time?"

* * *

As Gabriel opened the front door of his house, which wasn't easy given the fact that his arms were full, he was hit by a heavenly smell of something spiced and delicious.

"Mama! I'm home!" Gabriel said as he placed the trophy and the check on the table, his mother came out of the kitchen and quickly pulled him into a hug.

"Oh my gorgeous boy! I am so glad you are alright! I do not understand how you can play this game, it is so violent." She said as she ushered him into the kitchen and made him sit down at the table.

Gabriel shook his head as his mother began to dish up the food, he had tried to explain multiple times that creatures the duel disk summoned were not real but images and that he was in no real danger but she never seemed to fully believe him.

But that didn't matter to him right now, they had money and it could go towards getting his mother the care she needed.

He didn't understand the illness but the result was that his mother got tired easily, very tired. There was an experiment treatment that could get ride of it but it cost twenty million reals and they didn't have that but twenty thousand reals was a good step towards it.

He would do anything to get that money for her.

He smiled as she placed the plate in front of him and sat down and they began to talk about their days.

End of Chapter Six

xxxxxxxx

**Contract with the Dark Ruler:**

**Spell Card:**

**Type: Normal**

**Image: Dark Ruler Ha Des holding a contract out to the Bistro Butcher and Winged Minion**

**Effect: Select one fiend card that you control, if you have a fiend that is two levels lower than that fiend in your hand you may special summon that fiend to your side of the field.**


	7. Chapter 7

YU-GI-OH

The Kingdom Of Shadows

Chapter Seven

**Kaiba Land, U.S.A: 20th of July, 2015:**

Disney World may have been the happiest place on earth but Kaiba Land was doing everything in it's power to give them a run for there money, the massive popularity boom of Duel Monsters helping a great deal in this respect. What was once a small theme park in one city in Japan was now a global chain with theme parks in Paris, Dubai, New York, Osaka and Rome.

The main attraction was the VR pods, Kaiba Corp was the leading developer in VR technology and since they had developed it they had spent the last decade perfecting it and now Seto Kaiba's dream of a stable virtual world was now complete, the now named Kaiba World was a combination of an open-world RPG, an MMO and Duel Monsters.

This was not the only attraction of course, there were several rides and roller coasters such as the Blue Eyes White Dragon ride with cars that were shaped like...well, Blue Eyes White Dragons, or at least the heads of them anyway. There were also Kuribohs that went spinning on a round platform that caused far more vomiting than the teacups at Disney ever did.

And of course there were dual stadiums, this specific park had three two smaller ones that looked like simple domed buildings without much decoration or fanfare but the third was still a dome but it was shaped like the head of a Blue Eyes, showing the founder of the park's devotion to the creatures.

Inside the Blue Eyes stadium am intense duel was raging between two duelists, they both wore duel disks and were at opposite sides from one another.

The one on the left was a stout teenage boy with an unpleasant face, he had sandy blond hair and green eyes. He held a hand of five cards and have 3200 life points remaining.

The other boy wasn't much older, maybe around eighteen years old. He had long black hair that really looked like it was long overdue for haircut, he wore a sleeveless yellow vest of a blue shirt and wore a locket that was shaped like a duel monsters card. He had an hand of four cards and had 4000 life points remaining.

Neither of them had any monsters on the field and the boy in the yellow vest had one card face down.

There was also quite a large crowd of spectator's watching the duel, from young children all the way up to people in their sixties.

The stout boy laughed cruelly as he drew his card. "It's nice to see that things haven't changed Moki, even after all this time you're still a pathetic runt!"

Mokuba Kaiba had to bit his tongue to stop himself from saying something that he would regret later, not to mention there were children present and he didn't want to set a bad example. He honestly did not think that when he and Seto had arrived in Kaiba Land that is would happen to him.

Okada Yasuo had been an older boy at the orphanage that he and Seto had been sent too when there parents had died, he had lead a group of boys that made his young life hell. Seto, like a good big brother, had done everything in his power to protect him but he couldn't be with him every second of every day which had given Okada many opportunities to torment him.

He and Kaiba had come to this branch of Kaiba Land for a meeting with the management and he had the bad luck of running into Okada who had been on vacation with his family.

His adopted family had seem quite nice, a father, a mother and even a sweet little sister and in front of them he had been the picture of politeness but when he had said that he wanted to go to the stadium to see if anyone wanted to duel and they had walked away he had shown his true colours.

When Seto had discovered them he had been furious and tried to intervene but Mokuba had begged him not to, he knew that wound end with Okada and his family getting kicked out and while Okada might have deserved that his family certainly didn't.

So they had made a wager: If Mokuba could beat Okada in a duel then he would have to leave Mokuba alone and never bother him again and if Okada won then Mokuba would have to pay him ten thousand dollars and as a Kaiba brother he could have that amount of money and it wouldn't burn a hole in his or his brother's pocket.

But it didn't matter if he could easily get that amount of money, he could've just easily given it to him and made him leave him alone but that wasn't the point. He wasn't that weak little boy who needed his big brother to protect him and take care of his bullies for him, he could handle this and he was going to win!

Okada laughed and shook his head. "I think the first thing I am going to do when I get my money is buy myself on to a talk show and tell people that Seto Kaiba's little brother can't even play Duel Monsters!"

"You aren't getting any money! Just make your move so I can hurry up and get on my flight home!" Mokuba shouted before glancing to where Seto was sitting in the stands, a stony expression on his face. If Mokuba lost then Seto would never look at him the same away, he was the one who stopped him from interfering.

"Fine!" Okada shouted as he drew a card and looked at it for a moment before looking up at Mokuba. "I think I'll summon my Molten Zombie in attack mode!" He placed his card on the disk and a form that looked like a slouching figure made out of magma appeared on the field, it let out a low moan. (1600/400).

"And now I'll set two cards face down and that'll due for now." Two large cards appeared behind his monster.

"My move!" Mokuba said before drawing a card.

"And I'll active my two traps!" Okada shouted as both cards lifted up from the floor. "My first card is Drop Off! Now you can kiss the card that you just drew goodbye!"

Mokuba scowled as he placed the card that he just drew into the graveyard, he could've used that one! "You're going to pay for that!"

"Yeah, whatever." Okada said with a smug grin. "My other trap is Backfire, when ever you destroy one of my fire monsters you lose five hundred life points and in case you haven't figured it out by, all of my monsters are fire! Destroy my monster and you are only hurting yourself!"

"I'll take that risk! Now, I play polymerization to fuse the Queen's Double and Hibikime in my hand together in order to summon my Empress Judge in attack mode!" The two monsters that Mokuba was fusing together appeared for a moment, one a young woman with long red hair holding a handful of crystals and the other a woman with purple hair and green skin, before they both disappeared into a swirling blue vortex.

The monster that took there place was a woman who was at least seven feet tall with orange skin and gorgeous red hair, she had purple tattoos on her face and arms and a jewel embedded in her head, clutched in her hands was a sword with a long, slim blade. (2100/1700)

For a moment the entire stadium was struck silent by the appearance of the creature, most of the audience hadn't played Duel Monsters before and they had just seen a giantess appear out of nowhere even though they knew it was a hologram and couldn't hurt them it still took them by surprise and the others who had played before had almost never seen Empress Judge used before so they hadn't expected her to be so intimidating.

The silence was eventually broken, by a bout of hysterical laughter.

Okada was holding his sides, he was laughing so hard that it looked like hurt and Mokuba thought that he could actually see tears in his eyes.

"Are-Are you serious!?" Okada said as he wiped at his eyes as he tried to regain his composure. "Empress Judge!? That's got to be one of the most pathetic six star monsters in the entire game! Not to mention one of the most pathetic fusions! What were you thinking!?"

Mokuba scowled darkly and while he couldn't see it due to the fact that her back was to him, the scowl was mirrored by the Empress Judge who just slightly tightened her grip on her sword.

"She's still stronger than your Molten Zombie! But I won't attack just yet, I'll active my face down card, Jar of Greed! It let's me draw one card." Mokuba added it to his hand, giving him a total of two. "And now I'll attack! Empress Judge! Pass Judgement on that Molten Zombie!"

The Empress Judge rushed forward with a speed that seemed unnatural for her size and with one quick swipe of her sword the Molten Zombie's head was separated from it's body before that shattered into pixels.

Okada groaned as his life points slipped to 2700, he glared at Mokuba. "Don't forget that because you destroyed one of my fire monster you lose five hundred life points!" A blast of fire shot out of the trap card and Mokuba covered his face with his arms and duel disk to try and lessen the effect even as his life points fell to 3500.

_"Geez, Seto! I know it's only a hologram but did you have to make the disks simulate the pain so well? It's going to lead to a law suit one of these days." _Mokuba said as he waited for Okada to make his move.

Okada drew his card and smiled widely at what it was. "First thing's first, I'll play Monster Reborn to bring back my Molten Zombie from the grave." The holy symbol appeared on the field and shone before Molten Zombie reappeared on the field. "And when's he special summoned from my graveyard I get to draw an extra card." He said before he drew.

"Next, I think I'll remove the U.F.O Turtle that you so helpfully destroyed at the beginning of this duel from play and in exchange I'll special summon, Inferno!" A creature that could only be described as a fireball with eyes appeared on the field burning rapidly. (1100/1900)

"But don't worry Moki, you won't have to deal with them for much longer, you'll have something far worse to deal with! I sacrifice Inferno and Molten Zombie so I can summon the Infernal Flame Emperor!" The creature that appeared seemed to be made out of living fire, it had the lower body of a horse, the chest and arms of a man and the head of a lion and what seemed to be a pair of large wings sprouting out of it's back, it looked down at Mokuba and the Empress Judge and roared loudly. (2700/1600)

"This is my most powerful monster! No one has ever been able to beat me when I use it in a duel!" Okada said with a laugh before he crossed his arms. "If you want to surrender then I would understand Moki, it would be a lot less painful then a direct attack. I might consider even lowering my price."

Mokuba glanced across the stadium to look at Seto in the stands, his arms were still crossed and his expression was stony. If Mokuba surrendered then Seto would never luck at him the same way again. "Just move!"

"Fine, you can't say that I didn't give you a fair chance." Okada said with a smirk. "Infernal Flame Emperor! Show that pathetic fusion what a real monster can do! Incineration Stream!" The great creature made of fire held out it's hands and two streams of fire shot out of them and struck Empress Judge, within moments she was burned to ashes.

Mokuba scowled as his life points fell to 2900 and he placed the Empress Judge card into his disk's graveyard slot. "Are you done?" He asked as he crossed his arms.

"Yeah, I am so do whatever you want. It's not like you can do anything anyway." Okada said.

Mokuba closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he drew his next card, he opened his eyes and they went wide once he saw what it was. "I activate...Card of Sanctity! Now we each drew until we have six cards!"

"I know what it does." Okada muttered as both he and Mokuba drew their new hands.

Mokuba looked at his hand before a smirk appeared on his face and he let out a chuckle. "So Okada, you weren't impressed by my Empress Judge?" He asked even though he already knew the answer.

"Was I supposed to be? It was a mediocre fusion even when it first came out? I would've expect Seto Kaiba's little brother to have access to better cards than that." Okada said.

"Well, let's see if this impresses you more! I play Power Bond!" Okada gasped as the card appeared on the field. "And I'll use it to fuse the two Cyber Dragons in my hand together so I can summon the almighty...Cyber Twin Dragon!"

The two mechanical serpents appeared on the field for a moment before they glowed with a bright blue light before fading away and being replaced by a bigger dragon the looked like it had one mechanical body and the two heads of the former two serpents attached to it's neck. (2800/2100)

"And now thanks to my Power Bond my monster's attack power doubles! Now, the down side is that during my next turn I would take damage equal to my monster's original attack but this duel ends now anyway." Mokuba explained with a grin as his monster's power doubled. (2800)-(5600)

"Now then, Cyber Twin Dragon attack Infernal Flame Emperor with Double Strident Blast and end this duel!" The twin-headed dragon drew back and shot two streams of energy at the creature made of flame which roared and tried to resist but it wasn't able to hold out and shattered into pixels.

Okada could only stare at where his monster had been as his cards slipped out of his numb fingers and his life points fell all the way down to zero, that had been his best monster. No one had ever been able to beat it before.

But now somebody had and it had been the little runt that he always used to pick on.

Mokuba heaved a massive sigh of relief as his duel disk shut down and the holograms faded away, he did it. He had actually done it! It didn't seem possible but he had!

He looked up as Seto walked up to him, his face still unreadable as always for a moment before he allowed himself a small smile and placed his hand on Mokuba's shoulder. "You did good Moki, I'm proud of you."

Mokuba went as red as a tomato and ducked his head. "Thanks bro."

Seto glanced over to where Okada was now slumped over with tears rolling down his face before he scoffed. "Pathetic." He turned back to look at Mokuba. "You ready to head home?"

Mokuba glanced over to Okada before looking back at Seto and nodding. "Yeah! Let's go."

And with that the two Kaiba brothers left the stadium neither of them realised that the match had been filmed and within moments was all over the internet and various TV channels.

Within an hour there was already talk about the Kaiba duelling legacy...

End of Chapter Seven

**(Please review, favourite and follow if you enjoyed this. Constructive criticism is welcome.)**


	8. Chapter 8

YU-GI-OH

The Kingdom Of Shadows

Chapter Eight

**U.S.A: California, Industrial Illusions Main Headquarters: 21st of July:**

The large main building of the Industrial Illusions compound was impressive to say the least, over 350 feet tall and made of steel and polished glass that shined in the sunlight. Maximillion Pegasus's office was on the very top floor of this building and from his windows you could see the entire compound, a king overseeing his kingdom.

And right now the king's claim on his throne was in danger.

When Pegasus first founded Industrial Illusions, he had hired a particularly irksome little accountant by the name of Norman Arkansan, he was a little man only around five foot five with greasy hair, a thin pencil moustache and cheap wireframe glasses. He was a thoroughlyunpleasant man and Pegasus only kept him on because he was such a good accountant.

That had turned out to be a mistake, around two weeks ago someone had begun to buy massive amount of Industrial Illusion's shares and was buying out other shareholders, before long someone owned half the company and was interfering in every single decision that Pegasus tried to make.

Business was being badly affected and they had to delay the last set of cards twice already.

Eventually Pegasus had found out who had bought the shares: Norman. He had been embezzling funds from II for years, subtly so no one ever picked up on it and then he been using that money to buy the shares.

Pegasus had called Norman up to his office to confront him, he knew that he couldn't fire him while he controlled half of the company so he made him an offer: Beat him in a duel and he would sign over his half of the company to him. But if he lost then he would gain all of Norman's shares and he would once again be in full control of II since before duelist kingdom.

Norman was a greedy man so of course he had agreed and that was how they had gotten to where they were now.

Norman had a hand of two cards and two continuous trap cards, Gravity Bind and Solemn Wishes, he also had one monster, a woman with long grey hair and dressed in a red robe armed with a staff. (1300/1500). He also had 4000 life points left.

Pegasus had five cards in his hand and no spell or traps or monsters on the field and had 3100 life points left.

"I am sorry mister Pegasus but only a few more turns and then your company is mine!" Norman said with a manic glee, the first thing he was going to do was discontinue that stupid toon line.

"My dear mister Arkansan, you have to beat me first and I am afraid that isn't going to happen! My move!" Pegasus drew his card and looked at it for a moment before fitting it into his disk. "I activate Heavy Storm to destroy both of your trap cards!" A heavy wind blew through and destroyed both of the trap cards.

"Now I will set one monster and over to you." Norman growled before he drew and smiled at the monster card.

"I summon Axe Raider, in attack mode!" The warrior armed with an axe and dressed in golden armour appeared. (1700/1100). "Now attack! Axe Slash attack!"

Axe Raider slashed down at the card and it reaveld what look like a jar with something dark inside of it, whatever creature inhabited the jar could not be clearly made it out but it had one large round eye and a grin full of teeth.

"Not a Morphing Jar!" Normal screamed as he realised what it was.

"Oh I'm afraid so! Now we have to toss our cards and draw five new ones." Pegasus said with a smile before he placed his card into his discard slot.

"I know what it does!" Norman said as he discarded his cards and began to draw five new ones. "And it doesn't change anything, I am still going to win and your company is going to be mine!" He looked over his new hand and frowned, nothing that he could use right now. "Fire Princess! attack directly!"

The woman in red held out her staff and a burst of flame shot out of it, Pegasus grunted as the flame hit him and looked up at Norman. "Are you quite done?" He asked as his life points slipped to 1800. When Norman nodded Pegasus drew a new card form his deck.

"It's time for us to go to a world of wonder! A world of joy! A world of fun! A world of toons!" Pegasus said with a smile before he fitted his card into the disk and on the field a large green bound book appeared on the field. "Toon World! I have to pay a thousand life points to play this card, but considering what it does for me in exchange it's practically a steal!" He explained as his life points fell to 800

Norman held in a groan as he stared at the book, he had hoped to have beaten Pegasus before he had gotten to play Toon World. Everyone who had ever seen him duel know how dangerous his Toons could be, Pegasus had recently decided to release the Toon cards to the public as he had decided that it was unfair to keep such powerful cards to himself but he still created them all and he knew how to use them in ways that others didn't.

"Now lets see here, what to do? What to do? Oh, I know!" Pegasus said with glee as he picked up a card and put in into his disk. "I play Dian Kento, the Cure Master! And now I will get those thousand life points I paid back!" A heavy set man with green hair appeared on the field and glowed before fading away as Pegasus's life points went back up to 1800.

"Now, I'm going to play Polymerization!" Pegasus announced and the blue fusion vortex appeared above his head.

"I am not afraid of Bickuribox!" Norman shouted.

"Oh, I am so sorry. I'm afraid that I no longer use Bickuribox, I'm fusing something much different!" He revealed three cards in his hand and he enjoyed the look of fear, of absolute terror that suddenly appeared on Norman's face.

"You can't!" Norman yelled as he stared at the cards in Pegasus's hand in disbelief and fear.

"Oh, but I can! I so fuse the three blue eyes toon dragons in my hand together...to summon forth, **Blue Eyes Ultimate Toon Dragon!**"

For a brief moment the three cartoon versions of Seto Kaiba's famous dragons appeared in front of the blue vortex for a moment before they faded away and were replaced with a dragon while not much larger than any of them but it had three heads, the three heads laughed manically and tried to pull away from each other. (4500/3800)

"Now I give up 1500 life points and now my dragon can attack you directly! Go my Dragon, end this!" The toon dragon reared back and it's three heads let out three blasts of energy that sent it flying backward, Norman screamed as it him and he fell to his knees.

"I lost..." Norman muttered before looking up at his boss. "Mister Pegasus, please..."

"You share's are now mine and I am in complete control of company once again, now, get out before I decide to have you dragged away by the police." Norman sobbed in despair and got to his feet before running out of the room.

Pegasus sigh before sitting down at his desk, he was getting to old for this. He glanced at the picture on his desk of a beautiful blond woman with blue eyes and dressed in a lovely dressed before sighing and shaking his head, he had work to do. No time to dwell on the past.

He was afraid of what would happen if he did.

End of Chapter Eight.

* * *

**Blue Eyes Toon Ultimate Dragon:**

**Monster:**

**Type: Dragon/Fusion/Toon**

**Attribute: Light**

**Star: Twelve **

**ATK: 4500**

**DEF: 3800**

**Effect: This card can not be normal summoned or set, this card can not be special summoned expect by being fusion summoned with correct fusion material monsters. This card can attack directly if Toon World is on the field, you must pay 1500 life points to declare an attack. If Toon World is destroyed then destroy this card.**


	9. Chapter 9

YU-GI-OH

The Kingdom Of Shadows

Chapter Nine.

**Domino City, Japan, Turtle Game Shop, 22nd of July:**

Despite everyone being proud of Serenity of winning her first championship it had taken time for them to arrange a celebration party for her and everyone to have time in the schedules to make it, but they eventually made it and Yugi, Joey, Tea, Duke, Tristan and Serenity were all sitting in the living room and talking about her victory.

"It was really impressive Serenity, I don't think even I would've been able to beat you now." Yugi said with a warm smile and Serenity returned it, she knew that Yugi wasn't just saying that to impress her. He knew that Yugi wasn't interested in her in the way that Duke or Tristan were and thus it wasn't just false flattery.

"Thank you Yugi, but I don't think I am quite in your league yet." Serenity said with a smile. "And thank you for letting us have the party in your house."

"Yeah, thanks bud." Joey said as titled his head back and rested his feet on the table.

"No problem." As soon as Yugi said that there was a loud knocking sound coming from the shop down below. "That'll be Kaiba and Mokuba, I'll go and let them in."

As Yugi left the room everyone but Serenity and Duke groaned in annoyance, for some reason after the pharaoh had left all those years ago Yugi had insisted on trying to make him part of the group and while over time they had grown to tolerate him they still didn't like him, if Yugi noticed then he didn't say anything.

Serenity and Duke on the other hand didn't really care about that, Serenity hadn't really started hanging out with the group on a regular basis's until she moved to Domino to live with Joey about half a year ago and Duke actually liked Kaiba a fair bit and had made several business deals so he was more comfortable in his company.

Yugi walked back into the room with Kaiba and Mokuba following behind him, Kaiba dressed in his usual silver long coat and black shirt and pants while Mokuba wore a red shirt under his yellow vest. "Can I get you guys anything?" Yugi asked as Mokuba and Seto sat down on an empty sofa.

"I'd love a cola, if you have some." Mokuba said politely.

"I'm fine Yugi." Seto said as he met Joey's glare with an equal one of his own.

"I saw your duel online Mokuba, it was really impressive." Yugi said as he rooted through the fridge, trying to find the cola that he knew he had bought. "You thinking about entering any tournaments?"

"I'm not really sure, I've really only recently got into duel monsters and I only duelled that guy because he was a jerk that needed taking down a peg or two. I don't think I'm ready to duel in tournaments yet." Mokuba said with a shrug. "But maybe in a year or two? I don't know."

Yugi nodded and came back with a can of cola and placed it in Mokuba's hands before he sat down on the sofa next to Joey. "Did you guys see Serenity winning The Domino Local?"

"I did, I watched it online." Kaiba said before looking at Serenity with a smirk. "Excellent work Miss Wheeler, clearly we see who got the duelling talent in the family."

"What's that supposed to mean Money Bags!?" Joey shouted as he jumped out of the sofa and got into Kaiba's face. "I was second place in Duelist Kingdom! And I was fourth place in Battle City!"

"And the difference is that your sister has actually won a tournament." Kaiba said with a bigger smirk and Joey, who was so shocked by his response, fell over.

"Hey guys!" Yugi said with a nervous laugh. "Let's not fight! This is for Serenity and neither of you want to spoil it I am sure of that, hey! Why don't we watch the finals of the Japanese Nationals, it'll be good to see who I'm up against." He said with a laugh, Yugi had made an agreement with the tournament organisers that he would participate in a special match with whoever the champion would be in a few months time, He turned his head to look at Serenity. "If that's okay with you Serenity?"

"Sure! I've been wanting to watch the nationals anyway! Oh, we'd better hurry!" Serenity said with wide eyes as she reached for the TV remote. "The final match will be half done by now!"

She snatched the remote up and used it to turn the TV on before quickly switching over to the proper channel, unfortunately her prediction had been right and the match was half over but it was far from over.

The two finalists were both women, one was a young woman of about twenty-five and of fairly average height with long black hair and brown eyes and pale skin, she word a red jacket and blue jeans and had a duel disk strapped to her arm.

The other woman was something else, the average height of a Japanese woman was five feet, two inches, this woman was at least six foot, four inches and she wore a red kimono which was somewhat unusual as very few women still wore kimono's on a daily basis and it was even more rare for a duelist to be wearing one. She looked to be a two or three years older than the other woman, her black hair was cut into a sharp bob and she had a pair of cool green eyes. She wore a duel disk as well.

The woman in the kimono had a hand of two cards and three monsters on the field, one was a man wearing samurai armour that looked somehow both high-tech and ancient as the same time which glowed an earthy green and his face was obstructed by a long metal helmet and he was armed with a yari, a sort of spear. (1000/500).

The next was a man as well and he was dressed in similar armour through it glowed a fiery red and his face was not obscured by his helmet, strapped to his chest were dozens of primitive explosives and he one of those explosives clutched in his hand while he was grinning wildly. (1500/1000)

And the final one was again a man dressed in similar armour though this one glowed a green, yellowy colour. Clutched in his hands were a Katana and a wakizashi which were both glowing green. (1400/700)

The field was also different thanks to a field spell, it was quite creepy given that it seemed to be a battlefield with hundreds of discard weapons lying around and an ominous mist drifting around, with a large castle on a hill. The woman also had two cards face down and 3000 lifepoints left.

The other woman to give her credit did not seem intimidated by the creepy surroundings and the fact that all she had on her field to protect herself from three monsters was a single facedown card as well as the fact that she only had a thousand life points left. "Well, Kimiko. I've got to admit. You are really, really good. I can easily see how you got this far."

"Thank you for the complement Saiki, I can see how you got this far as well but I'm afraid that this is as far as you get." Kimiko said with a small smile. "At any right, I end my turn now. Over to you."

"Thanks." Saiki said as she drew a card and smiled at what it was. "First, I'll activate my face down card, Call of the Haunted! And I'll use it to summon my Kuriboh back from the grave!" The famous little hairball appeared with an chirp. (300/200)

"Kuri! Kuri!" It called.

"I swear that thing gets more adorable every time I see it!" Tea said with a smile as the gang watched the Kuriboh appear.

"It's kind of a weird move through isn't it?" Tristan asked, he had always had a passing interest in the game but it had grown over the years even more so when it became apparent that Serenity had started to play it. "I mean, why waste Call of the Haunted on bringing that back? She's got to have more powerful monsters in grave than a Kuriboh."

"She wouldn't have gotten this far if she didn't know what she was doing, she's got a plan." Yugi said with a confident nod before he stood. "I need to go and get something from the kitchen, Kaiba? Would you mind coming to give me a hand?"

"Sure." Kaiba said and got up before following him out of the room, no one paid it any real attention as they were too caught up in the duel.

Saiki took a card from her hand, she had four cards in it, and played one of them. "I play, The Flute of Summoning Kuriboh! This can either let me summon a Kuriboh or a Winged Kuriboh from my deck or add one of them to my hand! I choose to summon a Winged Kuriboh from my deck!" She exclaimed before taking her deck, leafing through it until she found the card she wanted and then shuffled her deck and put it back in the disk's deck holder.

She then placed the card on the disk and it...well, it looked like a Kuriboh with wings, fluffy angel wings to be specific, there wasn't really anything different about it than that. (300/200)

"Aw! That's even cuter!" Serenity said with a smile. "It looks like there's a fairy version of Kuriboh now, maybe I should look in to getting one?"

"I'm with Tristan, I'm still kind of blanking on what she's trying to do." Joey said. "I mean, I guess she could be using them as sacrifice's but why Kuribohs?"

"I think I have an idea why." Mokuba said as he stared at the screen and everyone turned to face him. "The normal Kuriboh is a dark monster and that winged version is a light monster and I think that means-"

Saiki interrupted Mokuba. "Now I play Pot of Chaos! I sacrifice a Dark monster and a Light monster and now I can draw two cards!" Both Kuriboh's vanished and Saki drew two cards

"And now I will remove my monster of darkness and my monster of light in the graveyard from play! In order to summon forth, Black Luster Solider-Envoy of the Beginning!" The two kurbioh's appeared on the field again for a moment before they vanished in a flash of light and standing in there place was a male warrior dressed in ornate armour and welding a sharp sword in one hand and a shield in the other. (3000/2500)

The entire audience went wild at seeing the monster and they began to clap widely, even Kimiko looked a little impressed.

"Damn, she's good. This duel won't last much longer." Joey said as he reached out for a bowl of crisps on the table and picked up a handful which he shoved into his mouth, not noticing how Tea rolled her eyes at him.

"Now I play heavy storm to destroy all your magic and trap cards!" The card appeared on the field and soon both of Kimiko's face downs and her field spell shattered. "Now then, I could use my monster's effect to remove one of your monsters from play but I think I use his attack this turn, but first I use the magic of soul taker!" Saiki played the card and the samurai strapped with explosives shattered. "I can use it to destroy one of your monsters though it does give you an extra one thousand life points in exchange!"

Kimiko said nothing as her life points increased to 4000.

"Now my Envoy! Attack Six Samurai-Yariza!" The solider lunged forward and struck the samurai that's face was obscured by his helmet and it shattered into pixels, Kimiko's life points fell down to 2000.

"And now, because I attacked and destroyed one of your monsters my solider can attack again!" The soilder lunged forward and slashed the samurai in green armour, destroying him and causing Kimiko's life points to fall 400.

"Told this duel wouldn't last much longer." Joey said with a shake of his head.

"Don't count her out yet Joey, you should know all about making last second comebacks." Duke teased and Joey threw a pillow at his head.

Kimiko didn't seem all that worried, if she was then she was doing an excellent job of hiding it. She drew a card and stared at it for a moment before picking up another card and fitting them both into her disk. "I will set two cards facedown and that will be my turn."

Saiki frowned as she drew her own card and stared at it for a moment before adding it to her hand and looked at the two facedown cards on Kimiko's side of the field and then looked at her solider. If she attacked then she would win but if those two face down cards were something that could destroy her solider then...

She was spared from having to make a hard choice but it wasn't a good thing as Kimiko activated one of her facedowns. "I activate Backs to the Wall! This is a very powerful trap card but it comes at a severe cost, it reduces my life points to one hundred!"

"Are you crazy!" Saiki shouted. "What could be worth that!?"

"Simple! I can special summon as many Six Samurai monsters from my graveyard as I can, so long as there isn't one of the monsters I summon already on the field and I don't try to summon more than one of the same monster from the grave!" Five columns of light suddenly burst out of the ground in front of them, one Red, one Blue, one Yellow, one Green and one Sliver.

Suddenly five monsters were standing their as the columns of light faded away, three of them were the same as the ones that Saiki had just destroyed but the other two were different, the first was a man in yellow glowing armour and he was armed with a longbow. (1300/800) The other was a woman dressed in a robe and a headscarf but she was not defenceless, she clutched a dagger in her hands. (1600/1000)

"Impressive." Saiki said. "But it's my turn and now I can attack any of them and you'll lose."

"Not if I activate this! Fuh-Rin-Ka-Zan!" The other of Kimiko's face downs lifted up. "Because there is at least one fire, one earth, one wind and one water monster on the field I can activate one of four effects! I think I'll choose the one that destroys all monsters on your side of the field!"

Saiki gasped in horror as her strongest monster shattered, her head fell. There was nothing she could do. "Just go." She muttered.

Kimiko nodded and drew. "Kamon, attack and end this duel!" The samurai in red threw two explosives and Saiki's life points fell to zero.

The announcer step forward and raised his hand in the air. "And the winner of this tournament, and our new National Champion is Kimiko Fuki!" He yelled and the crowd went wild! Kimiko bowed her head, clearly bashful but there was a small smile on her face.

"Damn, that was awesome! I've heard of comebacks but that was so cool!" Joey shouted. "The only come back I've ever seen that comes close is when Yugi duelled Noah!"

"Speaking of Yugi, where is he? He and Kaiba have been gone for a while." Tea asked and the group decided to get up and go see what was taking them so long, they walked downstairs and made their way to the kitchen and pushed open the door only to see something that made their eyes widen.

Kaiba had Yugi pinned to wall and was kissing him roughly and Yugi was clearly not complaining about the arrangement, at least he wasn't until he opened his eyes and saw his friends and his boyfriend's little brother standing in the doorway and he hit him on the back to get him to stop. Kaiba pulled away and his eyes widen at seeing them in the door way.

Yugi closed his eyes and sighed. "So, we need to all have a talk."

End of Chapter Nine

* * *

**Pot of Chaos:**

**Spell: **

**Type: Normal**

**Image: A pot of greed that is being distorted by a dimensional rift.**

**Effect: Sacrifice one Dark monster and one Light monster and then draw two cards. **


	10. Chapter 10

YU-GI-OH

The Kingdom Of Shadows

Chapter Ten

**Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A: North Atlanta High School, 23rd of July:**

Anna Martin was walking down the hallway of the high school and had to bite her lip to stop herself from screaming at everyone who was staring at her.

Anna was often told she was beautiful and she also knew that she was, long blond hair and pale skin and blue eyes which looked like chunks of ice. The problem was that her beauty attracted both a lot of weirdos and boys, and quite a few girls to be fair, who wouldn't take no for an answer.

She really needed to get out of here but she had a geography class and she needed to cram for her test, she took a breath and just decided to ignore them. She was about halfway down the hallway when she felt someone pinch her butt.

She spun around and had to resist the urge to groan out loud as she saw who it was who had pinched her. Jacob Tompson was the captain of the football team and thus he acted like he was the king of the school and everyone else his loyal subjects to command and do whatever he wished with and it wasn't as if the faculty did much to try and curve this attitude.

"Do that again and see what happens!" She growled and Jacob laughed with an arrogant expression on his stupid face, like she had just told him the funniest joke in the entire world.

"Oh, come on babe! Chill out. You should feel grateful, it's a compliment after all. I wouldn't have done that if you weren't so hot!" He said with a smirk as he rested his arm on her shoulders. "So babe, what do you think about coming with me to the dance tonight?"

Anna roughly shrugged his arm off and glared at him. "I should take you assaulting me as a compliment!? Are you completely insane!? And I would rather go to the dance with a dead toad than go anywhere with you!"

Her shouting had drawn attention and what seemed to be half of the school had surrounded them both in a tight circle, she didn't want this. All she had wanted was to get to geography.

"Oh come on babe, you're far to pretty to be a damn femnazi!" Jacob said and a few of his friends laughed at that.

That was the last straw for Anna, she screamed in frustration and everyone in the hallway suddenly took a step back. Even Jacob realised that had pushed her to far and was starting to look scared. "Uh-

"Listen up! I am going to go to my class and then after that I am going to go out to the front of the school with my duel disk and I'll wait for you for there meet me at the end of your class, I know you have your duel disk stashed in your locker. We'll have a duel and if you win you leave me alone and neither bother me ever again or touch me again, got it?"

"And if I agree to that, what do I get if I win?" Jacob asked, he wasn't afraid of this bitch there was no way that he could beat her in a million years but it could be useful.

Anna closed her eyes and sighed. "If you win not only will I go to the dance with you but I will also go on three dates with you after, sound fair?" The idea of spending that amount of time with this cretin made her skin crawl but she knew that she had to offer him something or he would never agree to the match and the chance of having him never bother again was too good to pass up.

He had taken the bait, going by the large sleazy smile on his face. "Well, alright but I hope you've got a dress all picked out cause I've got a brand new deck and babe, no one's been able to beat it yet."

"Then I'll be the first, see you after school." Anna said coldly as she walked away from Jacob and pushed past the crowd, there was no way she was going to lose. She couldn't lose.

As she made it through the crowd and began to walk down the hall she stopped when she heard someone calling her voice, she turned and saw her three best friends in the whole world rush up to, Abby, Jenna and Lisa had been her friends since kindergarten and they had stuck together ever since then.

"Anna! Are you crazy?! Why did you make that stupid bet!?" Abby yelled, her long bush of red hair shaking with every word she shouted. "If you lose than you have to go with him!"

"I know but it's worth the risk and I don't plan to lose." Anna said calmly. "Now, does anyone know anything about this new deck of his?" She knew that Jacob used to use beast-warriors and if he used that then she would've been able to beat that easily though his two Manticore of Darkness's would have caused her a bit of trouble, but him having a new deck did complicate things slightly.

"I think I overheard him say that he has a really rare and powerful card, no doubt Daddy bought it for him." Lisa muttered, Jacob's father was an extremely wealthy and powerful lawyer, he was respected and feared in equal measure and it was the worst kept secret in all of Atlanta that he had a great deal in control in the local government, the end result was his kids very rarely did not get what they want.

"What ever it is I'll handle it, now, let's put it out of our minds. I really need to cram for my test." Anna said before she turned on her feet and resumed walking down the corridor, her friends following after her.

* * *

After the school had let out for the day Anna and Jacob were standing in the middle of a circle made up of what looked like half of the student body, they were both shuffling their decks. They both had their duel disks strapped to their arms, Anna noted that Jacob's was the Kaiba Corp Pro X 3 disk, it was top of the range. "You sure you just don't want to just go to the dance with me?" Jacob asked as he finished shuffling his deck and placed it in his disk's deck holder. "It'll be a lot less painful in the long run."

Anna narrowed her eyes and placed her deck into her disk. "I am sure, now let's do this!" She pressed a button on her disk. "Duel Disk on!"

"Your call." Jacob said with a shrug as he turned his disk on and drew five cards, Anna did the same and their life points set to 8000.

"Duel!" They both shouted.

"Ladies first, see? I can be a gentlemen." Jacob said and Anna rolled her eyes before she drew her sixth card and added it to her hand.

She looked over hand and nodded before she picked one up. "I summon, Cold Enchanter! In attack mode!" A young woman with snow white hair appeared on the field, she was dressed in a blue leotard and wore a strange crown on her head. She held a staff which was topped with a sculpted snowflake. (1600/1200)

"Then, I'll set two cards face down and that'll do for now." Anna said as she fit the cards into her disk. "Over to you."

"Not a bad opening move, now let's see here. I think I'll summon my Masked Dragon, also in attack mode!" Jacob said and a red and white dragon with large wings appeared in front of him. (1400/1100). "And I think I will end my turn there."

_"So, he's using a dragon deck now? Well, fine. It could be worse. I can deal with a dragon deck." _Anna thought as she drew a new card and added it to her hand. "Alright, I summon Ice Knight in attack mode." A monster dressed in light blue armour with a red cape and armed with a double bladed staff appeared on the field. (1300/1200)

"And my knight has a killer effect, for each Aqua monster on both our fields he gain's 400 attack points." As Anna explained Ice Knight's score went up. (1300-2100)

"Now, Ice Knight!" Anna shouted. "Attack Masked Dragon, Ice Impalement!" The Knight rushed forward and stabbed the dragon with one of the tips of it's staff, the dragon roared and shattered and Jacob winced as his life points fell to 7300.

"When you destroy a Masked Dragon I'm allowed to summon another from my deck!" Jacob shouted and another Masked Dragon appeared on the field but this one had it's wings curled around it's self in defence mode.

"I am aware of it's effect so it's good thing I've got another attack. Cold Enchanter, get it!" Cold Enchanter pointed her staff and a blast of pure cold shot out of her staff, it struck the dragon who roared and was covered in ice, frozen in place for a moment before it shattered.

A second later a third Masked Dragon appeared and Jacob laughed. "Anything else."

_"I think I know what's he planning, he wants me to destroy that Masked Dragon and then he'll use it's effect to summon a Troop Dragon and then he'll have a wall, thankfully I've got another monster I can summon on my next turn so it'll only protect him for one round."_ Anna shook her head. "No, I'm done. Over to you."

"Thanks." Jacob said before he drew. "Don't worry babe, will be on our way to the dance before you know it."

* * *

The sky was just begin turn to a golden orange colour and some of the people who had been watching had left, either because they had to be home soon or because they wanted to start getting ready for the dance, regardless there was still quite a few people watching the duel.

Anna had the clear advantage, she had one face down card and four thousand-five hundred life points and a powerful monster on the field, it was a woman with long blond hair and wearing a more ornate crown, her dress was pure white and she had a staff that was similar to Cold Enchanter's but hers was larger. (2500/2000). She also hand a hand of three cards

Jacob had no monsters on his side of the field and he only had two thousand life points left, he had no facedown cards and only two cards in his hand but despite that he didn't looked worried, in fact he looked more confidant than ever about winning, Anna hated to admit it but it unsettled her a little.

"I'd give up now if I were you Jacob, I can't see how you're going to turn this around. I've already destroyed your best monster." Anna said as she stared at her opponent. "But it's your turn now."

"Oh babe, Tyrant Dragon was a powerful monster but it was nowhere near my best monster." Jacob said as he drew his card. "I think it's time for me to bring out my best monster, I think you and our audience have been waiting patiently." He picked a card. "I play, Dragon's Mirror!" He played the spell card and his Duel Disk glowed.

"Dragon's Mirror?" Anna muttered before her eyes widened as she realised what that meant. "No! It can't be!"

"Oh, but it is! I remove the three Masked Dragons and two Troop Dragons in my graveyard from play and I can special summon one fusion monster from my extra deck, and I think you know which one it is. Rise up! F.G.D!" The whole ground seemed to shake as a titanic form appeared on in front of Jacob.

The dragon had five heads, one was made of fire, one was blue, one looked like it was made of rock and an other of metal and one looked like it was make of pure darkness. All five heads were attached to one single body which was a pale yellow and looked to be as tall as a skyscraper. (5000/5000)

"You know, if you want to surrender I don't think anyone would hold it against you." Jacob said and Anna gulped before she shook her head and just glared at him, Jacob shook his head and sighed "Your funeral."

He took another card from his hand and played it. "I activate Flying Dragon Whirl! I send four dragons from my deck to my grave and for each dragon I send there one monster's attack points are increased by 1200 for this round."

The massive dragon roared as energy flowed into him and his power increased. (5000-6200)

"No! She can't beat it, there's no way!" Jenna shouted as everyone stared at the dragon in awe or fear depending on whose side they were on.

"Now, F.G.D attacked Ice Master with Destruction Blast!" All five heads shot out streams towards Ice Master who was atomised by the blast and Anna yelled as her life points were devastated and the fell to 800 life points.

Anna took some deep breaths and fixed Jacob with a glare. "Are you done?"

Jacob shrugged. "Got to admit Babe, you're tougher than you look."

"Stop. Calling. Me. Babe!" Anna yelled as she drew her next card and looked at it for a moment before placing into on his disk. "I'll set this monster in defence mode and that will be my turn."

Jacob drew a card, this wouldn't take much longer. He didn't have many cards left in his deck, he would either draw another monster he could summon or he would draw his Fairy Meteor Crush card and then even if Anna kept putting monster in defence mode it wouldn't help her.

He imagined how beautiful she would look in a dress, and after the dance how much fun it would be to peel the dress off of her and then-

"Are you going to go or what!?" Anna shouted and Jacob shook his head as he was brought out of his fantasy.

"Go my dragon! Attack that facedown monster!" The dragon shot out it's five beams and it rushed towards the face down monster, Anna grinned and she flipped the monster up and for a brief moment before it was incinerated they could see what it was. An adorable little penguin holding a small sword and wearing armoured pauldrons.

"No! Not Penguin Solider!" Jacob screamed but it was too late, the massive dragon glowed for a moment and let out a pitiful noise before it faded away.

"Afraid so, now normally Penguin Solider would send two monster back to either of our hands but because your Dragon is a fusion monster it goes back to your extra deck!" Anna exclaimed and her supporters cheered!

Jacob looked at his hand and hesitated. "I uh, uh. I set one card face down and then I'll end my turn."

"That's got to be the worst bluff I've ever seen." Anna said as she drew her card. "Now, since you tried to beat me with your best monster then I only suppose it's fair that I try and do the same with mine. First, I activate my call of the haunted to bring back Cold Enchanter." The trap card lifted and the woman appeared one the field.

"Now, I play a powerful magic card know as Icicle Sacrifice. I select one of my monster zones and for the rest of the duel it is considered occupied but in exchange for that I get an Icicle Token and when I sacrifice it counts as two monsters." The ground rumbled and a totem that looked like it had been carved out of ice burst out of the ground.

"Now, the monster I am going to summon is so powerful that I need to sacrifice three Aqua monsters, so I sacrifice my Icicle Token and my Cold Enchanter so I can summon, my Ice Empress!" Cold Enchanter and the Icicle Token disappeared and suddenly the atmosphere suddenly seemed a lot colder and a thin mist seemed to descended on the field.

The monster stepped out of the mist and the figure that appeared drew a gasp from everyone aside from Anna, it was an eight feet tall woman and she was made entirely of ice and held two staffs similar to the Ice Master. (3500/3000) Her eyes glowed with a bright light.

"Now my Ice Empress attack directly with Blizzard Force!" The Ice Empress held out both her staffs and a miniature blizzard descended on to Jacob who screamed as he was caught in the middle of it and his life points fell to zero.

Anna shut down her disk and Ice Empress faded away and she walked over to Jacob who was on his knees shivering, she knelt down in front of him. "I won, so your going to keep your end of the bargain and never bother me again, got it!" She shouted but she didn't wait for an answer, she know the message had sunk in.

Right now, she just wanted to head home.

* * *

Anna walked to her house, her two eldest brothers, Sam and Alec who were both home from collage were currently playing soccer with Rick, who was only older than her bye a year. She held up her hand and they all greeted her before she walked onto the pouch and entered the house through the front door.

"Dad, I'm home!" She called and her father, who had been in the living room walked out to greet her.

"Good day at school hon?" He asked as Anna kissed his cheek.

"It was okay, some guy got a little touchy but I took care of it. Anyway, I'm going to bed." She walked past her father and headed up stairs and went into her room, all she wanted to do right now was sleep.

She changed into her pyjama but before she got into bed she looked at her deck, it had taken a lot of work but it was almost complete and if she trusted in it like she had done today...

Then no one would be able to stop her from heading to the top!

End of Chapter Ten

* * *

**Flying Dragon Whirl: **

**Spell Card:**

**Type: Quick-Play**

**Image: Four dragons with energy following out them.**

**Effect: Send four dragons in your deck straight to the graveyard and increase one monster's attack points by three hundred for each one.**

**Vivian used this card in her duel against Yugi**

* * *

**Icicle Sacrifice:**

**Spell Card:**

**Type: Normal**

**Image: A totem carved out ice standing in the middle of a blizzard**

**Effect: Select one of your unused monster zone's, it is considered occupied for the remainder of the duel, and special summon one Icicle Token(Aqua-Type/Water/Level 1/ATK 0/Def 0). The Icicle Token can be treated as two monsters when used for a sacrifice to a monster.**

**Alexis used this card against Jaden when she had been brainwashed by the society of light.**

* * *

**Ice Empress **

**Monster Card: **

**Level: Ten**

**Attribute: Water**

**Type: Aqua**

**ATK: 3500**

**DEF: 3000**

**Effect: This monster can not be special summoned, this monster can only be tribute summoned if three Aqua monsters are used as tributes. All water type monsters on your side of the field gain 400 ATK for as long as this monster remains on the field, if this monster would destroyed by Monster Effect, a spell or a trap then remove one Aqua monster from your graveyard to prevent it's destruction.**

* * *

**Ice Knight**

**Monster Card:**

**Level: Four**

**Attribute: Water**

**Type: Aqua**

**ATK: 1300**

**DEF: 1200**

**Effect: This card gains 400 ATK for each Aqua type monster on the field.**

**This monster was used by Frost.**


	11. Chapter 11

YU-GI-OH

The Kingdom Of Shadows

Chapter Eleven.

Professor Arthur Hawkins sighed heavily at the hot sun shinned down upon him in his chair, he lifted his canteen to his lips and took a long drink of the cool water and sighed heavily as he pulled it away. He knew that he shouldn't be wasting the water, nearly four decades of digging in ruins had got him used to the heat for the most part but he was getting on and it was particularly hot today.

The university had tried to force him to retire at least four times now but each time he had politely but firmly refused, he may be old but he wouldn't be put to pasture just yet. Besides it wasn't as if he had much to do in his spare time now, Rebecca was spending most of her time with her parents these days and was considering becoming a brain surgeon according to her mother, it seemed as through she didn't have any time for her poor old grandfather these days.

And it wasn't as if there was much else he could do, his mind was as sharp as a tack and they would have him waste it gardening or sitting in the sun in a rocking chair with a blanket covering his lap and being spoon-fed pudding. He would work until he died, he wouldn't die curled up in bed surrounded by children and grandchildren, that might appeal to some but not to him.

He had discovered Atlantis for pity's sake but that never seemed to matter to most people, he was an old man and for most people that meant his time in the limelight had ended and that he was simply clutching to past glories and now he was very rarely invited to join digs and he was very, very rarely asked to lead them. It seemed that even in archaeology these days all people wanted were young men and women to lead the field.

"Professor Hawkins?" A calm voice brought him out of his trouble thoughts and he smiled as he looked up at Ishizu who was holding a wooden tray with two cups on it. "I thought you might like a cool drink."

"Thank you my dear, how very generous of you." Arthur said with a smile as he took one of the cups, Ishizu smiled and placed the tray on and small table next to his chair and then sat down in a chair on the other side of the table as she took her own cup. Arthur sipped at the liquid and couldn't stop the pleased sigh that escaped his mouth, milk and honey in this heat was very much appreciated.

"How are Odion and Marik?" He asked in between sips of the sweet drink, he had been staying as a guest of the Ishtar family for almost three months now, the burial chamber of the pharaoh Atem might have collapsed but the rest of the tomb was in fairly good condition and he had been invited to study it by the Ishtar's. Something of a rare honour as tomb keepers very rarely, if ever allowed outsiders access.

It was a rare opportunity, his work was to dig up the remains of ancient cultures but there was very rarely a chance for him to speaking with people who understand a dead way of life because to them it wasn't a dead way of life. Most of his information came from Ishizu and Odion, Marik, now that the Pharaoh had moved on to the afterlife, had been spending more and more of his time away from the tomb as he believed their duty had been fulfilled.

"Odion went to the market, I wanted some mangos and oranges and Marik is inside, he needed to pray." Ishizu said before she sighed and rubbed at her eyes. "I think he is contemplating leaving us completely, I always assumed that he would come around but it does not seem to be happening."

"Will you allow him to go?" Aruther asked, from what he understood being a tomb keeper was for life but that was on the assumption that the pharaoh would never return but now that he had they had fulfilled their main duty, all that was left to do was to maintain the rest of the tombs till the day they died.

"I can't stop him, I wouldn't even if I could. I would be no better than our father." Ishizu said with a shake of her head. "Gods, if our father was here and knew that he was even considering this, he would whip him until he didn't have any skin left on his back." She admitted quietly. "I want him to be happy, more than anything and if he isn't happy here then, he will happy somewhere else."

Arthur suddenly realised how hard Marik leaving would be for the young woman, their mother had died a few days after Marik was born and, while it was not his place to judge, from what Odion had told him about their father he had not been the most attentive or the kindest parent and that was putting it lightly.

Ishizu had been the closest thing that Marik had to a mother but more importantly Marik had been the closest thing that Ishizu had to a child and he knew more than anyone the pain of your child leaving. "He's an adult and I am sure that he will be fine, the evil inside him is gone." Arthur reminded her.

"I know, still the idea of him leaving is hard for me to grasp." Ishizu admitted with a sigh before she drank the rest of her milk. "Would you like to see the crypts of the tomb keepers tomorrow?"

"I would love that my dear, it would be interesting to see how-" Arthur's words trailed off as the air was suddenly filled with the sound off large engines roaring across the desert, they both stood up to see three trucks ripping across the sand and a large dust cloud was following them.

The trucks came to a stop in front of them and the driver's side door of one the truck's cabs opened and a young blond man dressed in khaki shorts and shirt hopped out, he wore a hat to protect himself from the sun and he had a duel disk strapped to his arm. Around twenty people, similarly dressed jumped out of the back of the trucks and began to carry out equipment to begin digging.

"What is the meaning of this!?" Ishizu shouted as she stormed towards the man who was clearly the leader, Arthur following closely behind her. "I don't know what you think you are doing but this a place of great historical and spiritual significance, you can not defile it. I will not allow you to."

"Well." The young man said as he stepped forward towards Ishizu, an arrogant smirk on his face as through her anger amused him. "I am extremely sorry miss but I am afraid that I can." He took a piece of paper out of his jacket and handed it over to her. "the Egyptian government has given us permission to establish a site here, it's a look into the distant past miss, a chance to better understand how people lived. You can't just keep it to yourself."

"It is not anything like that! It is our way of live and you mean to desecrate it!" Ishizu shouted before she took a deep breath to calm herself. "If you wish to learn more than I would more than happily sit down and talk with you about it."

"Were you alive five thousand years ago? I am sorry but most likely stories that were passed down to you have been distorted, regardless you don't have a choice. The government is on our side and they say we can dig." The man said and with a gesture of his arm two large, burly men stepped forward.

"Now wait a moment! I am sure that there is no reason for that!" Arthur said as he stepped in between Ishizu and the two men. "Still a little thug Alexander, even after all this time."

The young man stared at Arthur uncomprehendingly for a moment before realisation struck him. "Professor Hawkins?" He asked with a disbelieving snort of laughter. "I can't believe it, I thought you were dead. Is this where you decided to retire too? It's certainly not a bad place, the weather's nice."

"I am not retired Alexander and you are still as disrespectful as ever, it is comforting to see that you are as consistent as ever. I trust that means that you are still as mediocre as I remember." Arthur said and he couldn't stop the smile on his face as Alexander suddenly looked like he had swallowed a lemon, it had always been easy to get under the boy's skin.

"Insult me as much as you want, it doesn't change the fact that I still have permission to excavate these tombs and nothing you say will stop me." He said as he crossed his arms.

"You have a duel disk." Arthur pointed out.

"Yes I do, practically everyone I know does, my six year old sister has a duel disk. There's talk about making this game a damn Olympic sport for Christ's sake but if you think for a single moment that I would risk a chance to dig here over a card game then clearly old age has taken a toll on your mind." Alexander said.

"I wasn't suggesting that, I simply thought that it might be nice for us to have a little friendly duel. If you win then I will take back everything I said and if you lose then you take back what you said about my mind going." Arthur explained as he took his deck out of his short's pocket. "If you lose then you don't risk anything."

Alexander crossed his arms for a moment as he thought about it, after a few moments he nodded. "Alright, you're on!"

"Thank you, wait here a moment while I get my duel disk." Arthur said and he turned on his feet to walk back over to his chair to collect his duel disk which he had put inside of his bag which he placed at the side of his chair. Ishizu followed him and knelt down next to him as he opened his bag.

"If anyone should duel him, then it should be me. This is my home!" Ishizu hissed so no one would over hear them.

"I am aware of that but he isn't duelling so he can dig here, he is duelling so he can prove he is better than me. I am buying you time to get Marik out and to figure out a plan so, please don't argue and get going!" Arthur informed her as he took his duel disk out and placed his deck in the holder.

Ishizu nodded and got to her feet and made her way inside, Arthur walked back over to Alexander who had his disk ready. "I trust that you are ready?"

"More than ever."

"Duel!" Both men shouted as their duel disks turned on and their life points set to 8000, they both drew five cards.

"Beauty before age." Alexander said as he ripped a card of the top of his deck and looked at it for a moment before he added it to his hand and picked out another card. "I summon, the ancient gear solider!"

In a flash of golden light a robot appeared but it looked like a robot that had been built thousands of years ago, it was metal was grey and rusty and it had large moving gears, it only had one arm as the other looked to resemble a cross between a machine gun and a revolver. (1300/1300)

"I think that will do for now, over to you." Alexander said.

_"Ancient Gear, I've heard of these monsters. They are a fairly new archetype with some dangerous effects but I can't remember what the specifics are but I had better be careful."_ Arthur thought as he drew his card, he added it to his hand and picked out another one.

"I summon, the Gravekeeper's Assailant!" He shouted as he placed it on his duel disk and in front of him in a shower of sparks a woman with dark brown skin and dressed in a black robe with a hood which covered her face appeared, in her hands was a sharp dagger. (1500/1500)

"Now, attack that solider with curse slash!" The dagger in the woman's hand began to glow purple and she ran towards the machine, with a fierce cry she leapt into the air and slashed the robot right down the middle, the solider sparked for a few minutes and then it exploded violently.

Alexander's life points slipped to 7800 but he didn't seem at all concerned. "Is that it, can I go now?" He asked with a bored expression on his face.

"Patience, you young people are always trying to rush things." Arthur muttered as he looked over his cards, in really he was really just stalling. It didn't matter if he won or lost, he couldn't care less about what Alexander though about him but he needed to buy Ishizu as much time as possible. "I'll set one card facedown, and that will be my turn."

"About time." Alexander muttered as he drew. "First I'll active this continuous spell, Ancient Gear Castle!" From behind him a fort raised up behind him. "For as long as this card remains on the field any of my monsters with Ancient Gear in their name gets a 300 attack point boost. That isn't the only thing it can do but I think I'll leave that a surprise for now."

"Next, I think I will summon a second Ancient Gear Solider." Another mechanical solider, identical to the one that Arthur had already destroyed, appeared on the field. (1300/1300-1600/1300.)

"And now, attack Gravekeeper's Assailant, Ancient Gear Solider with Blasting Barrage!" The solider lifted it's machine gun arm and pointed it at the Assailant, a burst of fire came out of the gun and it rushed towards the assailant.

"I activate Negate Attack!" Arthur shouted as he hit the button on his duel disk, he realised with a start that his trap card wasn't activating and the fire consumed the assailant and his life points went down by a hundred to 7900.

"Wait a moment! My disk malfunctioned, my trap card did not activate!" Arthur shouted.

Alexander chuckled and shook his head. "I am sorry Professor but I am afraid that is not true, it didn't malfunction because when I attack with Ancient Gear Solider you can't activate any of your trap cards. Speaking of which, thank you for telling that face down card is a Negate Attack, I will be sure to keep that in mind. Anyway, I end my turn."

Arthur grumbled and drew a new card, he had known that these Ancient Gears would be tricky but he didn't realise that they would be causing trouble for him this early on and while it might not matter if he won or lost he didn't think he would be able to live it down if he lost to this little punk.

He wouldn't give up! He wouldn't!

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Arthur grimaced as he looked at the state of the game, things were looking like they could go either way at the moment. He had Gravekeeper's Cannonholder and Gravekeeper's Curse on the field, Necrovally on the field and no face downs and 3500 life points left. He had four cards left in his hand.

Alexander had 2000 life points left and no cards left in his hand but he didn't need any, he had a twenty foot tall monster on the field that looked like someone had taken Ancient Gear Solider and had supersized it. It was a titan of a monster, that was the only was to describe it and while he knew that it was a little silly he swore that he could feel some malice in the thing's one red eye.

"It's over Professor, no one has ever been able to beat the Ancient Gear Golem!" Alexander shouted. "Now, attack that Gravekeeper's Curse with Mechanised Melee!" The giant robot reared back it's massive arm and threw it down the small man and a cloud of sand was thrown up, obscuring the point of impact.

"Well, guess Curse couldn't with stand a blow like that." Alexander said with a laugh but as the sand cleared he gasped, Curse was still standing there, apparently unharmed. Arthur didn't seem surprised that his monster was still intact even as his life points plummeted like a stone down to 800.

"How?" He asked in disbelief.

"Just before you attacked I discarded a monster card known as Charm of Shabti, it has zero attack and defence points but I can discard it at any point and for the rest of the turn I discarded it then all my gravekeeper monster's are safe from being destroyed." Arthur explained.

"Fine, you're life points were protected. On my next turn I'll call another attack and don't think that face down card with protect you. This duel will be over." Alexander pointed out as he waved his hand to signal that he was ending his turn.

"This duel won't have another turn." Arthur said as he drew his next card. "First, I am going to sacrifice my Gravekeeper's curse to summon my Gravekeeper's Chief!" The man disappeared and was replaced by a different man, he wore a far fancier robe compared to the other gravekeepers and he held an ornate staff with a carved cobra head at the top. (1900/1200-2400/1200)

"And when my Chief is tribute summoned I can special summon a gravekeeper from my graveyard, and I chose my Gravekeeper's Curse." The Gravekeeper that he had just sacrificed appeared back on the field. (800/800-1300/800.)

"And you know what happens when Curse is summoned." The man held out his staff and glowed yellow, the same yellow aura surrounded Alexander and he groaned as his life points went down 1500.

"Next, I'll use my Cannonholder's effect, I sacrifice my Curse to blast you for seven hundred points of damage!" the curse turned into a ball of light and loaded itself into the cannonholder's cannon who held it up and blasted Alexander who groaned as life points went down again to eight hundred.

"And now I play Gift of the Martyr and sacrifice my Canonholder to increase my Cheif's attack power!" The Canonholder turned into a spectre and flew into the Chief who glowed and his attack power skyrocketed to 3800.

"Wait a second." Alexander began to say as he realised that he had no way to block the attack.

"Chief! Destroy that Golem with Eternal Curse!" The chief thrust out his staff and a black of dark purple energy flew out of his staff and collided with the Giant Machine, dozens of tiny explosions began to rack over the Golem before a massive explosion tore the machine apart.

Alexander watched in disbelief as his life points fell to zero, no one had ever destroyed his most powerful monster before! He growled. "Fine, so you beat me! It doesn't matter you old fart! You can't stop me digging and I am not going to apologise!" He turned to look back at his men who had been watching the duel intently. "Start unloading!"

"Hold it right there!" Ishizu shouted, her brothers and two police officers behind her. "No one will be digging here today!"

"You can't stop us! We have permission!" Alexander shouted.

"No, what you have is a faked document." Ishizu said as she held up the document he had handed to her, there was a gasp from the staff, a look of disappointment on Arthur's and a look of disbelief on Alexander's. "Forging government documents is an extremely serious crime, these men would like a word with you." The two officers came forward and grabbed Alexander's arms.

"No! Let me go I didn't do anything! No!" Alexander screamed, no one being moved by his screams as he was taken away. Odion shot a glare at the rest of the dig crew and they quickly got into the trucks and drove off.

"Thank you Professor, we owe you a debt." Marik said as he used to stand beside the man.

"You don't owe me anything Marik, I am just glad that I could help. If no one minds I think I shall call it a night." With a few goodnights following him Arthur turned on his feet and began to walk back inside, he was tired but he had forgotten how exciting duels could be.

He should do this more often.

End of Chapter Eleven.

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